


Dark Was the Night

by sayhitoforever



Category: Bleach, Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Crossover, Emotional Trauma, Ghost Drifting, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pacific Rim Crossover, discussions of PTSD and survivors guilt, extensive discussion of injuries, grimmjow's mental state is questionable, i am also genuinely terrible to grimmjow, i am genuinely terrible to ichigo, i like italics ok, if he was an actual state he'd be Florida, no betas we die like men, people are dead and no they're not coming back, tw for panic attacks, whole lotta grief i mean jesus, why did i do this to myself
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:48:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 50,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24151588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sayhitoforever/pseuds/sayhitoforever
Summary: Nobody talks about it, what it's like to lose your co-pilot, the other half of your soul. Grimmjow never expected to out-survive his own, to have to keep living. But there’s a big difference between living and just surviving. The world can’t slow down though, not even for dead co-pilots, and the call to arms is one that he has to honor.Pacific Rim AU.
Relationships: Grimmjow Jaegerjaques/Kurosaki Ichigo
Comments: 196
Kudos: 240





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I tell myself constantly that I will only work on/post one WIP at a time so that I can remain focused. And then my brain turns around and stabs me in the front instead of the back because it’s a much more visceral betrayal that way, and concocts shit like this. Basically, Pacific Rim was on TV just last week and it turns out that I’m definitely not over it, and I’m consumed by the idea of these two morons being drift compatible. So, I’m sorry. Or, you’re welcome. You pick.
> 
> I also never write in present tense, so this is an exercise or sorts for me. Wanted to play around with pacing too. Comments are always appreciated, thanks for reading! ❤️

**~**

It shouldn’t come as a shock to Grimmjow, the situation he finds himself in that feels achingly familiar and foreign all at once. He was just trying to get to his room to nap for fuck’s sake and instead he finds a hallway full of rowdy cadets, shouting and jeering and waving an assortment of limbs like an angry octopus. There’s the scuff of heavy boots on the metal floor of the Shatterdome, the sound of flesh meeting flesh in a solid punch, and another uproarious cheer from the gathered crowd. _Fuckin’ cadets,_ Grimmjow thinks with a vehemence, and pulls both hands out of his pockets and stalks forward.

He grabs one of the cadets around the shoulder in a grip that he hopes leaves a bruise and pulls back. Young, startled eyes shoot up to him and the expression that adolescent face morphs into is one Grimmjow is all too used to: immediate recognition. They stagger back, giving him the space he’s already prepared to clear for himself. By the time he shoulders through most of the swarm to get to the eye of the storm, the fight seems to be nearing its climax. Splayed out on the floor like a starfish is some guy that Grimmjow has never seen, not that he bothers to remember unimportant faces, especially ones as beat up as this guy’s, and straddling his waist is some other kid in a black hoodie and standard issue military pants, dark blue. His hood's up and he’s got one hand fisted in the collar of the beaten guy’s jacket, the other cocked back so far that Grimmjow can see the flex of muscle beneath the worn fabric of the hoodie. The kind of wind up when you’re ready to coldcock somebody.

And Grimmjow has zero aversion to fighting, would argue that for some people, himself included, it was the only way to get some emotions out. He also knows that if he doesn’t intervene and the Marshal finds out he was here even in an accidental happenstance, he’s going to get an earful. So, Grimmjow does the last logical thing he can think of and reaches out, grabbing as much fabric as he can hold at the back of the hooded guy’s neck, and yanks him off the beaten bastard. All hunched over the body like he’d been, Grimmjow had sort of figured that the scrappy asshole would be a pretty slight guy, lightweight. What he hauls back with a little strain and a lot of resistance is all long-legged, lithe muscle and fury.

“Break it the fuck up!” he barks as hoodie gets his legs under him, reaching back for Grimmjow’s hand in a grab that spelled a broken disaster for any fingers caught in that grip. Grimmjow lets go and takes a step back to put space between them and snarls as hoodie whirls around, reaching to pull said hood down.

An obnoxious shock of brilliant, unruly orange hair is what greets him first, crowning the tanned head of a guy who couldn’t have been much younger than he was. Warm, sun-kissed skin stretching over a proud nose and a squared jaw. His busted bottom lip is trickling blood down his sharp chin, wetting the seam of his mouth, and there’s a knot already turning purple at his right temple. A long-healed, silvery scar bisects his left eye, sheering a line from mid-forehead through an arched eyebrow, and extending midway down his cheek. And eyes so brown they shine like polished bronze, a blaze of ferocity and challenge that reminds Grimmjow of his—

_“Oh fuck, isn’t that Ranger Jaegerjaquez?”_

_“Shit, we gotta go. I don’t want to be here when the Marshal finds out.”_

Grimmjow’s quick to glance down at the guy’s dog tags hanging against his chest, can only make out a last name before an arm comes up to swipe at the blood on his chin, effectively smearing it. “The fuck you think you’re doing, Kurosaki?” he demands, wondering briefly why that name sounds familiar, before noting a few of the other cadets helping the beaten guy on the floor to his feet. They all make quick work of clearing the hallway after that, gossiping in hushed voices as they go.

“Settling an argument,” comes the sharp reply in a deep voice, laced with sarcasm and devoid of any honorifics.

“Good for you,” Grimmjow says snidely despite the fact that his heart is inexplicably beating like a war drum in his chest. “Settle it in the combat room next time, cadet.”

The guy— Kurosaki’s— face screws up a little, but he does nothing more than cock his head to the side and spit blood on the floor, eyes of hammered copper never leaving Grimmjow’s. Achingly familiar and foreign all at once, holding that spitfire gaze and the chromatic scale of bruise-purple dark circles beneath it feels like falling out of alignment, like getting sucker punched in the gut, it feels like the gentle, embracing silence of the drift. He’s distracting to look at, kind of reminds Grimmjow of the Lima Shatterdome at sunset, orange sunlight washing over the sands of the beach that the facility overlooked, making everything look like it was on fire. Old memories, practically another lifetime, and thousands of miles away.

“Sure thing,” Kurosaki says before grinning, a horrible flash of blood-covered teeth and gums. That’s the image that sears into Grimmjow’s brain, all that red and orange and skin, eyes like molten lava.

His eyebrows raise in surprise as he watches Kurosaki turn away without so much as another word and stalk down the hall before disappearing around a corner. Grimmjow gives himself all of five seconds to think, _they’ll just bring any crazy fucker in to be a cadet these days,_ before he shoves his hands back in his pockets. He indulges himself another five seconds to wonder what kind of argument is worth settling with your fists in a busy hallway where anyone of considerable rank could have seen you, and ultimately decides that’s ten seconds he could have spent napping, and continues on his way.

~

Grimmjow wakes with a strangled scream, wrenching its way out of his lungs like metal tearing under alien-sharp claws. He rolls out of bed to the floor and onto all fours, staring down at the concrete beneath him as he gasps for breath. He’s himself and he’s his younger sister and he’s his older sister, and they’re both screaming at him in the back of his head and he’s screaming right back. He’s cold, soaked to the bone from the rain— no, that’s not quite right. Indoors, he’s indoors, in his room in the Tokyo Shatterdome, there’s no rain indoors. Sweat then, cold, sticky, ghost-drifting nightmare sweat. But it had been raining, it had been raining that night in Lima, rainy and wet. Seawater up to mid-torso on their Jaeger, seawater up to his knees in their damaged Conn-pod, seawater stinging him as it rushed into his damaged Drivesuit.

Fuck, stop, _please_ he nearly screams aloud. He doesn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want to remember. He spasms once, twice, manages to repress a dry heave as a hand that doesn’t exist anymore coasts up his back, thin fingers weaving through the damp hair at the base of his neck. Soothing and mournful simultaneously, the sensation pulls a sob from his aching chest. He puts his forehead against the floor, tries to ground himself with the cold touch of stone. Everything aches, right down to the carbon atoms he’s made of. His left arm is pulsing with pain in tune with his out of control heartrate, throbbing all the way down in his fingertips. His scars burn like brands, the memory of hot metal searing across his right cheek, melting through his Drivesuit armor and cauterizing him from his collarbone to his right hip. Burning, he’s burning, and he wishes, not for the first time and certainly not for the last, that it would just consume him.

 _‘Take a deep breath, Grimmjow,’_ says one of the two voices trapped in his mind, bringing with it the phantom brush of sea-green hair and the smell of freshly-peeled oranges. _Nel._

He really does try to listen, goes through the motions of hauling in a deep breath and fails. Tight, something tight was pressing against his chest and his lungs, suffocating him. He feels unbound, untethered, like he’s not even attached to his own skin anymore, like he’s slipped out of his body. He moves off of one elbow, reaches shakily for the collar of his shirt because it feels like he’s choking and that has to be why, but he never sleeps with a shirt on and that sends his panic into a full spiral. Grimmjow’s chest constricts again and all he manages is a wheeze, so he lifts his head and slams it down against the concrete floor as if that’s going to help him.

It’s a hand, he realizes belatedly, another hand that no longer exists, pushing on his chest, driving him back onto his haunches, forcing him to sit up and balance on his knees and toes. There are stars in his vision, a spray of staticky silver dancing across the blank wall in front of him as he gasps shallowly. But it’s not just a blank wall, it’s a Lima beach front, a wash of white sand stained Kaiju blue and littered with broken Jaeger parts and chunks of alien flesh. It’s a half-flooded Conn-pod, pitch black save for the occasional red flash of the emergency lights from the electrical having been blown out from the seawater reaching the reactor and shorting everything. It’s him forcibly detaching his feet from the rig, hearing the deafening roar of a Kaiju just beyond a half-destroyed layer of metal, smelling his own burning flesh, shedding blood as he staggers towards the mangled bodies of his sisters. His hair is slicked to his neck, to his forehead, sweat dripping into his eyes but he can’t even bring himself to blink. The hand is pressed flat against his chest, over his dog tags, and it feels so solid, so impossibly real, that another choked off sob wrenches out of him.

 _‘Breathe, Grimmjow, that’s an order.’_ says the second voice in his head, a flash of golden-blond hair, a hint of coconut body lotion, punctuated by a sharp shove against his sternum that sends him toppling over. _Tier._

Grimmjow slumps against the metal of his bunk, the cold along his bare shoulder blades the perfect jarring sensation. The touch of it is like a jumpstart for his lungs, and he gasps a breath in, panting as he leans there. He moves his hand up to grasp his dog tags, holds them tightly in his hand until the metal bites into his palm, grounding himself with the physical sensation the way his psychologist has taught him to do.

“N’my supervisor,” he mumbles on instinct, as he always used to, sagging against the side of his bed, eyes drooping closed.

The cold metal in his hand brings his racing pulse down a fraction. He breathes in deeply through his nose, can smell the oranges, small, undergrown, the size of clementines, that Nel would barter favors to get her hands on because they were her favorite. Can smell the coconut body lotion that Tier would always put on, a gift from a J-tech’s widow at the Lima Shatterdome who’d make it herself. He tips his head back and rests it atop his mattress, manages to get his eyes open to stare at the slats of metal above him that hold up the empty top bunk. Slowly, breathing becomes easier, his heart a sprint instead of a stampede in his chest.

And in the back of his aching head, down every nerve crowded in his abused body, he can hear Nel start to sing the song she always did when she was stressed, when all three of them were stressed. A Gaelic lullaby she’d learned from a couple of J-techs when they were stationed in Los Angeles, California at the beginning of their career. The techs would sing it as a Jaeger was sent for a drop, their voices filling the metal scaffolding of the bay, the spacious rise of the hangar carrying their song. Something about a poet across the seas and far from Ireland, homesick and alone. Nel had even got them to teach her the Gaelic because she wanted to sing it that way, honor it or some shit. Grimmjow fucking hated it, and she knew it, and she sung it anyway because she was Nel and she lived to annoy him, and it didn’t help that the bay was full of the lullaby every time a Jaeger was called to duty. She knew his loathing for it was rooted in the connection he saw in it, could see it in the drift every time because it was through that very drift that her knowledge of it and its translation was something he was forced to know. A couple of orphans like they were, they had no true home, nowhere to ‘go back’ to, but the words had always festered within him like a rotting wound.

_Oh my heart is weary all alone and it sends a lonely cry. To the land that sings beyond my dreams and the lonely Sundays pass me by._

Grimmjow closes his eyes again, lets the song wash over him like a warm wave, lets the ghost of his dead sister card a hand through his sweaty hair while the other sits beside him, her legs pressed against his own. They’re not really there, he knows that, has gone through an entire calendar year of therapy to be sure about that, but fuck if it doesn’t _feel_ real. They’re just a memory, their personalities stored in his brain like it was a data drive, ghost drifting imprints from years of drifting together. He knows he should be checking the clock, seeing if it’s a reasonable hour to knock on the door of his psychologist. She’d made it very clear from the beginning that they have a session whenever something like _this_ happened. But for a moment, he lets himself sink into the fantasy, into the memory of being three instead of one. He lets Nel’s voice lull him into a lucid doze and Tier’s silent strength cocoon him as she sits beside him.

_I would travel back the twisted years, in a wasted, bitter wind. If the God above would let me lie in a quiet grave amongst the winds._

**~**

It’s an entire, uneventful week later as he’s prowling an upper-floor deck of the Mark IV Jaeger rebuild that Tokyo had agreed to spearhead, sleepless and restless, just trying to find a quiet corner to sit down in so he can stare up at the under-construction Jaeger, that Grimmjow sees a flash of orange. It’s on his periphery, could have been the spray of sparks from a welder, but somehow, he’s pretty sure it isn’t. Grimmjow immediately stops in his tracks and reverses his course, quick to follow after the orange, sure to keep his heavy-booted footsteps against the grate floor of the hanging bridge as silent as possible. When Grimmjow finally tracks that fleeting burst of color down, his prey is standing at the far end of a metal catwalk, head craned back as he stares up at the left arm of the Jaeger before him. The paneling of its upper arm has been removed, bearing all its complicated innards. It looks pretty put together from Grimmjow’s perspective, not that he’s really well-versed in the complex mechanics of how a Jaeger works internally.

There’s a desk to the left of his target, chair pushed in neatly, the top of it a clutter of neatly stacked files, schematics, and blueprints. Grimmjow inches forward, observing what he can in tensed anticipation. The guy— Kurosaki, he has to remind himself— is wearing the black coveralls of an average J-Tech officer. Having unzipped the upper half, the sleeves are tied around his waist and a t-shirt that was probably white at some point hangs loose on his shoulders. Silver glints around his neck just at the collar of his shirt, the same black leather boots laced up to mid-calf. He’s got his arms in front of him, holding something, off-guard. Grimmjow can’t help the feral grin that cracks his face or the pilot light of warmth that ignites in his gut.

“I don’t know whose dick you sucked to get up here, cadet, but I suggest you scram before somebody with their rank up their ass finds you instead,” he calls, a thrill going through him as he sees Kurosaki’s shoulders tense.

But he doesn’t turn around, not right away at least, as if Grimmjow hadn’t actually managed to sneak up on him. But when he does turn, pivoting to reveal a digital pad balanced on his hip, the look on his face could curdle milk. He takes in Grimmjow’s countenance of poorly disguised savage glee, hands in his pockets, shoulders slouched, the swagger of his slow stroll as he moves closer. Grimmjow stops, leaves a decent six feet of space between them as Kurosaki continues his onceover before meeting Grimmjow’s eye.

“Not a cadet,” he says finally, voice raspy as though he’s been shouting all day. “And at least I have clearance to be up here.” He thwacks his stylus against the side of the digital pad he’s holding as if that’s all the credentials he needs to prove his point, and turns away from Grimmjow again. _Turns away._

Grimmjow bristles immediately, and trudges forward, putting himself directly in between Kurosaki and his view of the under-construction Jaeger. “Oi, Rangers are allowed to go wherever. Only a fuckin’ cadet wouldn’t know that.”

Kurosaki has the magnanimity to look up from his screen as if Grimmjow is the one in the wrong here and pin him with the same sour gaze. In the odd assortment of lights in the Jaeger bay, Kurosaki’s eyes remind him of a nuclear turbine, all scorching fire with the promise of pain. Even the scar tissue splitting his left eye seems to shimmer in the light. “Guess some Shatterdomes have different rules,” he essentially shrugs, voice carefully void of emotion. “Vladivostok never allowed Rangers near active work projects.”

That sounds like literal horseshit to Grimmjow, but he’s never been stationed in Vladivostok to definitively say that it is. He leans heavily against the railing behind him, propping himself up on his elbows, letting his booted feet slide out until he’s practically toe-to-toe with Kurosaki. He gives Kurosaki his most annoying grin, the one that could make even the Marshal roll his last good eye, and chooses to ignore the dark circles under that spitfire gaze that make him look as exhausted as Grimmjow feels. But Kurosaki just blinks down at him, unfazed, and not getting the reaction he’s used to nearly tanks what’s left of Grimmjow’s mood. Still no honorifics either. Not that Grimmjow demands that people use them around him, but his title as a Ranger commands a rank of respect, one that Kurosaki seems keen on ignoring. The bastard must think he’s hot shit.

“Well, you’re in Tokyo now, kid, and I’ve got half a mind to call the Marshal up, but I’ll give you ten awfully generous seconds to tell me what the hell you’re doing up here.”

And that seems to be the spark that actually ignites Kurosaki’s fire, the fire from the crowded hallway almost a week and a half ago that had him spitting blood at Grimmjow’s feet. Because he half-lowers his arms, digital pad gripped in one hand, stylus in the other, and gives Grimmjow a look intense enough to smelt metal. His white shirt is streaked with an array of grease and synovial joint fluid and his dog tags are tucked under the stained fabric, but all Grimmjow can seem to focus on is the whipcord-strong muscles of his arms. Like he’d been chiseled from stone, every tendon in stark relief up to where his upper arms disappear under his shirtsleeves. His arms are decorated with thin, silvery scars, too much like Grimmjow’s own. It’s distracting, he’s _distracting_ , up until he spins the screen around and damn near rubs Grimmjow’s nose in it, holding it up to him. It’s just a page of multi-line block equations, and detailed schematics of the arm behind him, with very neat handwriting cramped in the margins. Other than a single line reference about 98BD/Hyper-Torque Drives, Grimmjow has no fucking clue what he’s looking at.

“J-tech, Weapons Specialist for the Mark IV rebuild project, _sir._ ” And it’s the _dirtiest_ , most disrespectful way he’s ever heard somebody say that word, and Tier used to spit it out like it was the foulest curse she knew sometimes.

Kurosaki is looking at him over the top of the digital pad, sunburst orange hair hanging nearly in his eyes that have taken on a smug glint. Grimmjow straightens up just a bit to see that, yeah, the little fucker is even smirking at him too, a little uptick in the left corner of his mouth. Grimmjow sure as shit isn’t brain-dead and he’s got a working, indiscriminatory dick, and that look of self-assured confidence in _that_ face, all sharp angles and fuck-me eyes, is absolutely checking a couple of his boxes. It throws Grimmjow for a loop for several seconds, expression blanking out as he processes the new information. Weapons Specialist was kind of a big deal position, considering they were responsible for all the offensive power a Jaeger could be equipped with. Plasma cannons, missiles, swords, everything that made a Jaeger a deterrent for a Kaiju was the brainchild of at least one or more J-tech Weapons Specialists.

So, maybe the kid actually _is_ hot shit.

“Does my answer satisfy you, Ranger?” Kurosaki continues, smirk growing more pronounced, sending blood to places Grimmjow didn’t currently need it, as he lowers the screen. “I’d hate for you to bring the Marshal all the way up here to watch me do my job.”

He couldn’t stop it. Hell, a Jaeger wouldn’t even be able to stop the borderline maniacal grin that splits his face as he holds Kurosaki’s heated gaze. Oh, he likes this kid. There’s a grand total of maybe five people in the Tokyo Shatterdome that Grimmjow considers a worthy opponent, physically or verbally. Most of them are too starstruck to look him in the eye, the downfall of having the reputation of Ranger precede him. He almost forgets his exhaustion, almost forgets that he’d been prowling around the hanging catwalks for a quiet place to be left alone with his thoughts. He almost can’t hear the two distinct laughs in the back of his head over the sound of his own buzzing blood, _almost._ He doesn’t know where Kurosaki’s been hiding, why Grimmjow hasn’t seen him since that chance encounter in the lower-level hallway, but he’s damn glad regardless.

**~**

It’s after another nightmarish night of staring at the top bunk, tossing and turning, doing push-ups until he thought his arms would fall off just to try and tire himself out, that Grimmjow finds himself in the refectory, slumped over a tray of breakfast he’s barely interested in eating. The din of semi-crowded tables around him feels like a white-noise hum in his head as he spears a bit of sausage, maneuvering it aimlessly around his tray. Just yesterday he’d had another session with the Psych Analyst, Dr. Retsu Unohana, who couldn’t help but remark at the end that she thought that Grimmjow had made impressive progress over the last year. She’d said it with the optimism of someone who always saw the potential in a person, who always saw the light no matter how long or dark the tunnel was. And Grimmjow’s tunnel was a vacuum, the void of space, devouring every speck of light in it’s wake. 

It’s a nagging idea, trapped somewhere in his cluttered mind, that she’d probably grant Grimmjow clearance to be active duty again if he asked. Not that he would. He isn’t— some of it is still so clear, as though he could just let his eyes slip closed and he’d be _right there_ again. There were some things that time hadn’t dulled at all.

“Got a favor to ask you, my sweet, blue Devil,” comes a purring voice right in his ear and he startles, shoulders ratcheting up and spine going ramrod straight.

“Damn you, woman,” he snaps as Fightmaster Yoruichi Shihouin plops down across from him with a sadistic cackle. “I told you to stop doing that.”

“Gotta keep you sharp, _Ranger,_ ” she chuckles, dangerous hazel eyes regarding him with their usual good humor. She’s a wash of warmth, skin the rich color of freshly turned earth, hair the same shade of the black hellebores in Southern Germany pulled up in a high ponytail. White shirt, standard black pants, obscenely orange jacket fitted to her shoulders and waist. Orange like— “Wouldn’t want you to get rusty.”

He narrows his eyes as he stares at her, trying to parse her angle but she’s as inscrutable as always. He stabs a piece of potato, makes sure to drag the metal fork against his teeth audibly in the way he knows she hates, and chews thoughtfully for a moment. “I don’t owe you shit as far as favors. We’re all paid out, remember?”

Yoruichi just frowns theatrically at him, bottom lip jutting out in a truly impressive pout as she bats her long lashes at him. “I’m terribly hungover, you see, and could really use an able-bodied substitute for today.”

Grimmjow knows it a lie, knows that even blind-drunk that she could wipe the mat with even the top ranked cadet, maybe even with him. She was after all, unlike Dr. Unohana, the one that kept submitting a report to the Marshal that Grimmjow was ready to be activated again, every month lately, just like clockwork. He sort of appreciated it, knew the gesture came from a good place. Grimmjow was never meant to be the kind of person who stood still, who stood on the sidelines while the action unfolded around him, and Yoruichi knew that. She was trying to help in the way she knew best and Grimmjow couldn’t fault her for that. As unspoken thanks, he helps her when he can, when he feels like it, going down to train cadets who want nothing more than to receive a lesson from a Ranger because they think it holds more value, regardless of how badly he makes them regret it afterwards. And once he wears them out, he gets Yoruichi all to himself, long enough to get a decent ass-kicking.

He’d asked, only once, early on when he was still fooling himself into believing he’d be back in a Jaeger in no time, like it was no sweat, deep in the black depths of denial. He’d asked her if she’d ever consider piloting, maybe even with him. She’d just smiled, the same coy curl of her lips, and shook her head.

 _“I see better from the outside,”_ she’d said to him before laying him out on the mat in ten seconds. _“Besides, there’s no one left on this planet that could replace me.”_ She was right, of course, and Grimmjow had promptly gone on to have a psychotic break not a week later. She’d barred him from even stepping foot on the same level as the combat room for months afterwards, hissing at him like an angry cat every time he tried. _“Don’t even fucking think about coming back down here until you’ve healed._ ” Physically, there’d been only fresh scars ailing him at the time, but she knew, she always knew.

“What’s in it for me?” he asks cautiously, holding her gaze steady as he chomps on metal fork tines. A vein pops briefly in her temple, there and gone, as she gives him a thousand-watt smile. She shrugs her backpack from her shoulders to place it on the bench beside her, sticking her arm up to the elbow in it and withdraws a bag nearly half the size. Grimmjow still doesn’t speak or read Japanese all that well, but it’s hard to mistake that cartoon strawberry on the front of it, even harder to mistake the individually wrapped candies within the see-through plastic bag. His eyes widen immediately and so does Yoruichi’s grin.

“That’s not in my nutrition plan,” he counters weakly, the strawberry caricature staring at him, taunting him.

“Like you even have one of those,” she scoffs with a roll of her eyes. She gives it a little shake, rustling the contents.

He tries to save what little face he has left. “I fuckin’ might! What do you know?”

“I know this bag is worth at least a straight month of your precious time, but since I like you so much, I’ll settle for a week.” She must sense that he’s close to caving because she shakes the bag again, slowly this time, and Grimmjow damn near starts salivating. He always wanted to think he was above bribery, but he absolutely wasn’t. Candy in war time was like seeing a shooting star. Not to mention, Grimmjow could have sworn that the factory of the company who made the candy clutched in her long-nailed hand had been destroyed sometime last year during a Kaiju attack.

“Fuckin’ gimme those, you swindling bitch,” he hisses, arm snapping out to snatch them away. She’s laughing as she zips her backpack closed again, keeps laughing until she snorts as Grimmjow tries to shove the entire bag into the inner pocket of his jacket. “I don’t want to know how you got these.”

“I fucked that engineer again.”

“I said I _don’t_ want to know. Jesus, woman.”

**~**

He’s waiting for the elevator to head to the combat room to go physically punish some cadets after spending another hour in the refectory bickering with Yoruichi when the doors slide open to reveal Marshal Kyouraku. Only his years of getting slapped upside the head by Fightmaster Baraggan Louisenbairn at the Los Angeles Shatterdome for his insubordination save him in the moment. He’s been in Tokyo for a little over a year, and he’s gotten to know the Marshal well enough to remember he prefers shallows bows to salutes, just a nod of respect to rank. A Japanese native and a retired Mark I pilot, Marshal Kyouraku Shunsui is simultaneously as laidback as he is strict, amiable, approachable, and a figure of absolute authority. Grimmjow snaps to attention, barely manages to check the muscle-memory of a salute and bows respectfully at the waist.

“At ease, Ranger,” the Marshal says with his characteristically warm grin and muted voice. Grimmjow straightens and enters the elevator, leaving a comfortable amount of space between the two of them as he reaches for the floor button he needs.

“Marshal,” Grimmjow greets courteously. As usual, the Marshal is in his navy suit and tie, Pan Pacific Defense Corps pin glinting from his left lapel, his wavy, brown hair cinched loosely at his neck in a ponytail. His hands are clasped before him and draped delicately over them is his preferred uniform, his flowered, pink kimono. Grimmjow’s never seen him without it on his person in at least some manner and has definitely not asked a living soul about why he carries it around. There are some things you don’t talk about, and Grimmjow is a master of that art.

“This is fortuitous, I’ve been meaning to speak with you. Though the environment is something to be desired I suppose.”

And something in Grimmjow, leaden and black-dungeon-dark, sinks like a torpedo in his gut and detonates. “Sir?” he manages to say, staring up at the digital floor counter, watching it descend.

“Kisuke Urahara and his team have managed to salvage the remnants of an old Mark III and are in the process of restoring it with some of the experimental weaponry and parts from a demolished Mark IV. A real Frankenstein hybrid if there ever was one,” Marshal Kyouraku says, and Grimmjow spares a glance out of the corner of his eye to take in his scruffy jaw and the eyepatch that rests over his empty right socket. “She needs pilots.”

Grimmjow doesn’t know what’s worse in that moment: his sense of duty flaring to life, the fresh wave of grief that rolls through him like a graveyard chill, or the lingering ache in his soul that can only be soothed by sinking back into the silence of the drift. _Not yet, I’m not ready_ , is his first thought. But he never will be, and he knows that. There will never be a day when he feels whole again, and he knew that _this_ day, the day he was asked to honor his commitment to the PPDC, was coming.

“We’ve got cadets that aren’t quite ready to graduate, not ready to step foot in a Jaeger, and a desperate need for competent pilots, Ranger Jaegerjaquez,” the Marshal continues to say, side-eyeing Grimmjow whose already broken out in a cold sweat despite the usual chill of the elevator. “You’re one of the last Mark III pilots left alive in this hemisphere. The world still needs you.”

As far as conversations in an elevator went, Grimmjow has definitely had better. He’s left to stand there struck dumb and silent as the doors slide open to the combat room level. Beyond the them, filtering through the short hall, is the din of a combat room full of waiting cadets. He steps out in a daze, hauls in a breath that feels a little like inhaling jello, and turns to face the Marshal.

Grey eyes in a perfectly practiced face of expressionlessness regard him expectantly. When a shout sounds from somewhere behind them, a wry smile pulls the Marshal’s into something faintly amused, albeit a little somber. “Why don’t you and I have a conversation soon? It looks like you’ve got your hands full today.”

It’s all Grimmjow can do to get his head down in a shallow bow, heart like a jackhammer in his chest, eyes fixed unseeingly on the polished concrete floor, before the doors slide closed again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Gaelic lullaby that is referenced is one of my favorites, Aird Uí Chuain. Ciara McCrickard of At First Light does a beautiful rendition of it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have an embarrassing amount of this written already, so don't mind me. 
> 
> Comments are appreciated. Thanks for reading! ❤️

  
~  
  


“The fuck kind of defensive stance is that!” he bellows as he circles the two sparring cadets, one taking a swing at the other with their shinai like it was a baseball bat.

They flinch at the poorly restrained rage in his voice, feet shuffling back to the approximation of a proper stance, and it’s all Grimmjow can do not to gouge his eyes out in frustration. It’s day five of the seven total that Yoruichi essentially bought Grimmjow for with a bag of fucking candy. Some of these cadets, _these children,_ can barely hold their own against each other, so it’s a modern miracle that Yoruichi hasn’t drilled through the concrete to make a mass grave for them already. He stands too close, pressuring, as the two square off again, their nervousness nearly tangible under his watchful blue eyes.

Grimmjow tries to remember what it was like when he was a cadet, tries to remember if he felt as nervous as they all look, pale faces that have nothing to do with exertion covered in a sheen of sweat. He just remembers feeling invincible, strong, capable. But, at the time, the Kaiju war had only been raging for five years, and the spark of hope that maybe if they beat these monsters back hard enough they’d stop coming through to their world was still burning. Looking at the congregation of people younger than Grimmjow ever remembers being it’s hard not to wonder if that spark is still there. He, Nel, and Tier had been _the_ dominating force of their Jaeger Academy’s graduating class. They were an indefatigable wall, all three of them tall, long-legged, lean, whip-smart, and ferocious. They knew what they wanted, and they moved as one cohesive unit. But they’d answered to an excellent Marshal in Los Angeles, Kukaku Shiba, and learned from an equally competent Fightmaster in Old Man Barragan. The training is there with the cadets before him, Yoruichi’s techniques and approach unmistakable in the way they stand and hold themselves, the respect they show each other.

Respect didn’t help you kill Kaiju, but Grimmjow could begrudgingly appreciate the sentiment. He knew it was meant to foster compatibility, build friendships and bonds to make true potential pilots out of them. He lets out a long-suffering sigh, tries to rein his temper in.

“Your best defense needs to be an offense,” he says, sticking a hand between them, interrupting the same baseball-swing of the one cadet and catching the shinai easily. He releases it and rounds on him, drives a half-gentle fist into his spine at his lower back while reaching up to pull his shoulders back, correcting his posture. He grabs the kid’s elbows and tucks them closer to his sides. “Your feet need to move with the rest of your body, fluid, one form into the next. And so help you, if you swing that thing like a baseball bat again, I’m gonna knock a homerun into the back of your fuckin’ skull.”

A thready laugh goes through the crowd of cadets surrounding the mat, observing, and Grimmjow nods at the two in front of him. “Again,” he commands and steps back to give them space.

**~**

Grimmjow is posted up on a hanging catwalk a few days later, the droning alarm signaling a Kaiju rising from the Breach and a Jaeger being called to duty waking him from a light sleep not half an hour ago. He picks a quiet space, ironically the same one that faces the left arm of the under-construction Jaeger where he’d hunted Kurosaki down not too long ago. Having climbed the metal-grate stairs one after the other, up and up until he could comfortably overlook most of the Shatterdome, he scoots right up to the metal railing, folding his arms over the lowest one to prop his head up, and letting his legs dangle freely. It’s almost two in the morning, but the Shatterdome never sleeps, and certainly not after one of its own has been carried out to sea. Across the cavernous space, Bay 06 is empty and startlingly quiet, the sure sign that White Haze and her two pilots, Renji Abarai and Rukia Kuchiki, had been summoned to action. It’s hard to look at the vacant bay and not let his brain run away on him, so he turns his mind elsewhere.

The panels of the under-construction arm beside him have all been replaced, like it had never even been opened up, but they’re just blank steel, unpainted, nameless. He stares up at it anyway, tries to remember what it looked like when he’d confronted Kurosaki. He wonders if this is the Frankenstein Jaeger that Marshal Kyouraku mentioned, or if he should be expecting some scrap heap from Oblivion Bay to come rolling in through the oversized blast doors someday soon. Figures that the Marshal would blindside him with unexpected interest in reactivating him and then want to put him in some shoddy, patched up machine. Probably no less than he deserves, he thinks, as he watches some officers try to sweep to the drains the worst of the rainwater that’s pooled near the doors far below. Raining again, though over the usual din of the innerworkings of the Shatterdome, Grimmjow can’t hear it hitting the roof.

“Am I gonna need to set up a security checkpoint for this bridge?”

Grimmjow puts a crick in his neck he looks over his shoulder so fast. Kurosaki stands several feet behind him, a specter of undisguised annoyance. He’s carrying a darkened welding helmet and a welding harness in his gloved hands, the kind that suspended J-techs from the scaffolding so that they could work on parts of the Jaeger where the walkways didn’t quite reach. His face is streaked with soot and grease and who the fuck knows what else, as is his shirt, and the spikes of his orange hair are matted down oddly in places from sweat and his helmet. He’s still got his coverall sleeves tied around his waist, and his arms are equally dirty with aluminum soot. Seems pretty stupid, Grimmjow thinks absently, the whole point of sleeves while welding was to protect your fucking skin from open flame and sparks. Kurosaki dumps his gear in the desk chair just to the side and runs a hand through his offensively bright hair.

“Do it,” Grimmjow challenges, watching triumphantly as Kurosaki puts his hands on hips and regards him with exasperation. “See if it stops me.”

Kurosaki heaves a sigh and Grimmjow turns back around to hide the involuntary smile plucking at the corners of his mouth. “Did you need something?” Kurosaki asks, footsteps light as he approaches, and it’s not the slightest bit rude. He seems to be genuinely curious, no malice in his expression when Grimmjow glances up at him. He’s staring at the empty space where White Haze’s hulking form should be, something shuttered and unreadable in his gaze.

“Peace and quiet?” he tries, but ruins it by smirking.

Kurosaki just snorts softly. “You picked the wrong bridge then.”

He watches the Weapons Specialist out of the corner of his eye, watches him observe the unrest of the Shatterdome below them much like he did, eyes sweeping about to take in the scene but always drifting towards the vacant bay. Grimmjow wonders if he’s met Rukia and Renji or, if like most assigned techs and officers, his world revolves around his respective Jaeger.

Grimmjow is acquainted with White Haze and her pilots, had met them about month after his transfer to Tokyo from Lima. It was probably a good thing that pint-sized, zero nonsense Rukia had decided to reintroduce herself and her co-pilot sometime after that because Grimmjow had been unknowingly so deep in the depths of his own grief, he hardly remembered meeting them. Stoic but prone to violent outbursts, Rukia reminded him a bit of a small dog with a Napoleon complex. Abarai was a bit of a hothead too, quicker to anger than his girlfriend —wife? Grimmjow really didn’t care enough to get clarification— and was a walking arsenal of bad jokes and questionable tribal tattoos. But they were two solid Rangers with three notches on their belt, had been defending Tokyo since White Haze’s inception. Tactical, brutal when the need arose, with honed instincts, they brought a surprising amount of levelheadedness to the current Strike Group of the Tokyo Shatterdome.

He lets the silence linger comfortably between them for a few minutes before asking the question that’s pressing on his mind. “This the Frankenstein Jaeger then?” Grimmjow juts his chin out at the machine, his voice drawing Kurosaki’s attention back down to him.

“Frankenstein?” Kurosaki questions, sounding borderline insulted, before he throws his head back and laughs, a throaty, warm sound that seems to curl around Grimmjow like a cat. “This is going to be the most put-together Jaeger in this Shatterdome. Which asshole called it Frankenstein?”

“Yer boss,” Grimmjow says with an evil grin, but Kurosaki only sniffs in disdain. Without much preamble, Kurosaki pulls his shirt up to scrub the soot from his face and all Grimmjow sees is abs, abs, _abs._ And Grimmjow abso-fucking-lutely stares because Kurosaki can’t see him through his dirty shirt and there’s no one else around to witness him, and it’s all he can do to jerk his head away in time not to get caught peeping. Bad. Bad, bad, _bad_ , he’s fuckin’ mad that he has this knowledge now.

“Of course he did,” Kurosaki mutters. They both fall silent again for a stretch of time, Kurosaki leaning on the top railing, staring placidly out at the bustle of the Shatterdome, like watching ants march to and fro. “Are you gonna pilot her?”

“Her? It ain’t even been given a paint job yet and you’ve already decided it’s a lady?” Grimmjow says sarcastically, careful not to meet Kurosaki’s burnished gaze staring at him intensely. He can feel it, like a sixth sense, the way the attention makes his skin crawl. He hasn’t even had the time to speak with the Marshal yet since getting ambushed in the elevator, but he knows that conversation is imminent. “Maybe, dunno yet. I’m damaged goods, Kurosaki, didn’t you know?”

“Aren’t we all?” Kurosaki replies with a surprisingly soft huff that draws Grimmjow’s immediate attention, only to follow it up with the most melodramatic eyeroll that Grimmjow’s seen since Tier died.

There’s a quiet reproach in the silence that follows, like a careful line being drawn in the sand, one Grimmjow pointedly ignores. It’s a proverbial itch he has to scratch, which is weird because Grimmjow isn’t exactly nosy. He’s mostly kept to himself since being transferred to Tokyo, but there’s something about this guy, this snarky Weapons Specialist covered in scars with a haunted gaze as blaze-bright as a forest fire, that’s managed to get under Grimmjow’s skin in no time.

“Everyone that ends up working in a Shatterdome, ends up here for a reason. So, who’s yours?” Grimmjow dares to ask, staring at Kurosaki, so focused that the world around the Weapons Specialist has blurred away.

He won’t look Grimmjow in the eye, but he doesn’t have to: it’s all right there on full display, like an open, ugly, festering wound. Kurosaki’s throat bobs as he swallows roughly, eyes darting to the side, jaw tensing hard for a moment. “My brother, a year and a half ago. Mom, at the beginning of the war.”

A hollow pang of some kind of pity-sympathy twinges in his gut. Grimmjow has developed a firm belief since his sisters’ deaths, fostered of course by Dr. Unohana, that grief should never be compared. It’s unfair to weigh suffering like that, the way people handle it, the cause of it. No grief is equal. Grimmjow has never considered himself lucky, at least not yet in his life, but he knows it is both a blessing and a curse the unintentional gift he was given when the electrical circuits of their Jaeger were fried and he was disconnected from his sisters before they died. They linger, flashes of them buried in his subconscious, a consequence of drifting together for years, of reigning in each other’s heads, but he knows that they aren’t with him anymore. He wouldn’t wish this on anybody though, not even his worst enemy. He wonders if other officers like Kurosaki ever think about that, if they ever wonder what it’s like, if they ever dared to wish they could have held onto their loved ones.

“You?” Kurosaki asks, voice a scratchy rasp as his gaze finally swings back down to Grimmjow.

“My sisters,” he replies just as quietly, swallows down the lump that rises in his throat. “Last year.”

“Two?” Kurosaki sounds incredulous, eyes widening ever so slightly before a realization dawns in his them and there’s nothing to stop Grimmjow from grimacing at that. “You were Tres Espadas, the triple-pilot Jaeger.”

Grimmjow winces, is careful to keep the reaction out of his face, and braces himself for whatever Kurosaki will say next. People always had questions, endless, prying fucking questions, and a torrent of sympathy they wanted to dump on him like it meant anything. He wants none of it, it means nothing, no matter how genuine the intentions are. Sympathy and apologies isn’t going to bring his fuckin’ sisters back. But Kurosaki stays quiet, agonizingly so as they stew in each other’s presence. Grimmjow doesn’t talk about this shit with anyone but Dr. Unohana, and sometimes, _sometimes_ Yoruichi. But Kurosaki is easy to talk to for some reason. Has managed to establish without saying a god damn thing that there’s no expectations of an answer. Grimmjow is _expected_ to answer— if he can— while in sessions with the Psych Analyst. He feels _compelled_ to explain himself sometimes to Yoruichi, why he’s so particular about certain things, where it comes from, if it’s even _his._

He can’t help but look up to try and catch sight of Kurosaki’s reaction, absently rubbing his scarred cheek along the sleeve of his sweater, a habit of poor form. No feeling there, only numbness, and the ache of guilt that fills all of his scars. Kurosaki is staring at White Haze’s empty bay again, unblinking, face almost neutral. There’s a moment when he squints slightly, lips parting a little and the corner of his mouth quirks up as though he’s going to say something. But he shuts it just as quickly, muscle in his jaw pulsing once and Grimmjow almost wants to laugh; talk about internalizing a conversation.

“You know, we’ve thought about giving her swords,” Kurosaki comments conversationally after a minute or two and Grimmjow glances up at him fully. He’s staring at the unfinished Jaeger, head tilted sideways as he props it up in the palm of his hand. A thrill shoots through Grimmjow’s chest, a niggling little sense of pride. Tres Espadas, the Three Swords, aptly named by the Peruvian engineers who’d built her, had been a deadly precise killing machine, no matter how many fuckin’ times Nel jokingly compared it to a weedwhacker.

“Oh yeah? Have you?”

Kurosaki just grins. It’s slow spreading, but it transforms his solemn face into something radiant. He’s striking and Grimmjow feels like he’s being repeatedly sucker punched in the gut the longer he stares at him. “Guess you’ll have to wait and find out, Mr. Damaged Goods.”

**~**

He's slouched down into one of the chairs at the conference table in the small room adjacent to the main LOCCENT control room plucking at a loose string on his sweater sleeve three days later. White Haze had come back victorious, scoring its fourth Kaiju kill and returning to the Shatterdome relatively undamaged. Her secret technique did the Kaiju in, Yoruichi had told him over breakfast. An arm full of coolant that Kuchiki and Abarai had vented right down the monster’s throat before shattering it like glass. The mental image of White Haze’s sharp metal fingers ganking the monster’s throat out is enough to put him in a good mood until he gets summoned.

Marshal Kyouraku is leaning casually against the window on the other side of the table from Grimmjow, his form outlined by the lights behind him. He’s donned his flowered kimono this morning, situating it to lie perfectly on his shoulders. He stares at Grimmjow with his last good eye, one hand tucked in his pants pocket, the other lifting a teacup to his mouth. Grimmjow just keeps shifting his gaze from the sad sleeve he’s just about unraveling to the digital war clock above the LOCCENT main control on the other side of the conference room. If the Marshal was trying to wait him out, make him squirm a little, then Grimmjow hoped he was hiding it well because it was kind of working.

“Your reinitiation to active pilot status hinges on Dr. Retsu Unohana giving her signature that you are cleared for duty,” the Marshal says finally, stepping forward to set his teacup on the long table.

 _She will if she hasn’t already¸_ Grimmjow thinks, and takes a moment to wonder if some sort of fuckin’ conspiracy has been going on behind his back. Dr. Unohana _had_ been saying nearly every, if not every other session, for the last three months that Grimmjow was making strides. Coupled with Yoruichi’s reports echoing the same sentiment— and _huh,_ Grimmjow might have to kick her ass too when this train wreck of a meeting is over. At the very least, he’ll ask if she’d been in on this mess from the beginning. The thought of that pseudo-betrayal stings a little.

“Should you agree,” the Marshal begins generously, as if Grimmjow has any room to argue or refuse at this point. “Fightmaster Shihouin will compile her list of potential cadets, and Dr. Unohana will thin it out with her assessments. What’s left will comprise the list of potential co-pilot candidates for you to test, Ranger Jaegerjaquez.”

Grimmjow tries to picture himself taking any one of those knee-knocking cadets seriously in a spar meant to test their drift compatibility and wants to vomit. The Marshal had been right when he’d said it in the elevator almost a week and a half ago: they’re not ready to step foot into a Jaeger. Grimmjow’s not really sure he’s ready either, but it seems that his choices are being made for him. He wants to ask why the sudden desperation, to activate a pilot as fucked in the head as he is, if something has changed, but it doesn’t seem the time nor the place.

“Thank you, sir,” Grimmjow says instead, grimacing slightly when he pulls the thread too hard and a hole opens up in the cuff of his sleeve. _Fuck it,_ he thinks, winding the string around his index finger tight enough to restrict bloodflow.

“You’re a pretty sociable guy though, so if you have someone in mind or know someone who’d be willing to submit to the testing process, let the Fightmaster know and we’ll have her take a look.”

 _There’s no one_ , Grimmjow thinks wildly as he stands, pushing his chair in neatly, pulling the thread he’s wound around his finger even tighter. _There’s no one in this entire fucking Shatterdome equipped to share a headspace with me._ It’s not an overdramatic thing to think, it’s not hyperbole in the least: Grimmjow is fucked up six ways to Sunday and any sane person with a working brain between their ears would run for the hills if they knew what was good for them. Mutinously, he thinks of what someone else would see in his drift, what he would see— _blue, blue, Kaiju blue staining everything, Jaeger parts, monster parts, body parts, his sisters smiling, fighting, screaming, and dead, dead, dead_ — and manages not to flinch by willpower alone.

“Thank you, sir,” he repeats, tucking his chin down and bowing respectfully before exiting the control room.

**~**

Another rough night, another nightmare, waking with a startled shout. Ground yourself, breathe, get up, pace trenches in the floor.

 _How does it come out of you?_ he wants to scream. How does the calm come back? He was nostalgic for aches that were raw skin from his Drivesuit chafing during long missions, how much he hate-loved the smell of relay gel. Fleeting aches, passing pains. Where was all this pain rooted? Why couldn’t he separate himself from it? How could he unload what he was carrying without terrifying another person? He doubted there was an easy way to articulate to someone that he hurt so much that death would be preferable, but tomorrow still seemed like maybe it was worth sticking around for.

 _I ache in my bones_. _I have become the kind of hollow that can never be filled back in._

Grimmjow doesn’t say that to Dr. Unohana when he knocks on her door at precisely six in the morning. He doesn’t have the energy for the kind of session that would turn into.

**~**

“What’re you looking at?” Yoruichi sing-songs around a mouthful of lukewarm green beans.

She’s been watching Grimmjow’s every move since she sat down like somebody was paying her. She hadn’t said anything about the dark circles under his eyes, something he’s silently thankful for. He hadn’t been able to go back and get any sleep after speaking with the Psych Analyst. So, he’d resorted to wasting the rest of his day working out before pulling himself together long enough to get a shower in before heading down for dinner. His hair is still half-wet, straggling across his brow and lying damp on the collar of his thermal shirt.

“Nunya,” he replies, tipping his plastic cup to his lips and counting the heads around them over the rim of it.

He never sees Kurosaki in the refectory. In fact, he never sees Kurosaki anywhere except near the reconstructed Jaeger, almost exclusively on bridge near it’s left arm. It’s not like he’s trying to seek him out or anything, he isn’t— _he totally is_ — but he’s started to find it pretty fucking weird that Kurosaki seems to only exist right in that specific spot. When did he eat, sleep, do literally anything else? Occasionally, he spots him in a hallway, catches him out of the corner of his eye like a hallucination, and observes Kurosaki turning and speaking like someone was beside him, nodding and talking with no one else around. He’s seen officers who’ve just been issued Comm-ear pieces do it too, and he wants to laugh every time he’s caught Kurosaki in the embarrassing act. Grimmjow wonders if Kurosaki has been issued one because of all the plans that the Marshal has set into motion, including reactivating Grimmjow. The mouthy bastard is important and probably pressed for time to get that miscreation of a Jaeger in working order. Grimmjow plans to needle him all about it the next time he sneaks onto the bridge.

“ _Who’re_ you looking for?” Yoruichi tries again, voice softer, sarcastic edge still there.

He glares at her as he sets his cup down. “Nobody. Mind your business.”

The grin she gives him, wolfish and full of half-chewed vegetables, reminds him of Nel. She’d harass him like this too, all the time over every, miniscule detail. If she so much as caught Grimmjow’s gaze wandering to something not immediately identifiable for an excess of ten seconds, she had questions. Tier, of course, had always humored their bickering with amused silence.

“I’ve started working on your list, you know,” Yoruichi says once she swallows. He blinks blankly at her, brain needing a few extra seconds to process what she’s said. _Already?_ Jesus, it’s only been two days since he’d been sitting in that conference room with the Marshal.

“Yeah? Anybody worth my time?” he asks, licking his knife clean of butter before shoving a piece of bread in his mouth.

Yoruichi makes a twisted-up face at him like she’s just sucked on a lemon. “You know I can’t tell you. Then you’d be biased during the trials.”

“I would not,” he protests, even though he knows she’s right.

The look she gives him next is withering at best. “The Marshal tells me you’re supposed to be making yourself useful.”

Grimmjow frowns as he tears another bite out of the slice of bread. He’d honestly not given himself a single fucking second to think about it since he’d basically cheesed it out of the LOCCENT conference room. His knee jerk reaction had said it all, at least for him. Grimmjow had always been a creature of instinct, something Nel used to harp on him about, Tier less so. He’d always been reactionary, the first to hop out of bed when the Breach alarm sounded in their room. Besides that, most of the people he’s familiar with in Tokyo are either already pilots themselves or unwilling to be applicants. His incendiary attitude is doing him in once again, he thinks a little viciously. But it’s more than that— it’s the act of having to let go of his sisters who he’s still holding onto. The act of having to let a perfect stranger into his life, into his head, into his soul. He knows he should be thinking about it, give himself a fighting chance to have a say in this process, but he can’t bring himself to.

“I dunno,” he mutters, chasing a stray green bean around his own tray under Yoruichi’s watchful, hazel eyes. “Skeezes me out, the idea of some nobody knowing everything about me. Just keep thinkin’ about having not family in my head, not my own blood, ya know?”

Yoruichi’s face softens into something approaching sympathy, though Grimmjow knows she wouldn’t dare let it slip there completely. She gives a small, somber smile, reaching out to put her hand atop Grimmjow’s were it rests on the table. She’s warm, familiar, and Grimmjow is almost tempted to ask her again if she would reconsider her stance on not piloting. She gives his knuckles a squeeze and he meets her open gaze.

“Family isn’t always about blood,” she says quietly and a punch of air whooshes out of Grimmjow at her insight. “Sometimes it’s about who you’d bleed for.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS CHAPTER IS A BELATED BIRTHDAY GIFT TO JUNICHIBLUE. ILY, BITCH. ❤️❤️❤️
> 
> Also, some plasma physics because HELL YEAH and also, why the fuck not. I'm not an expert by any means.
> 
> Thanks for all the love and comments. ❤️

~

Yoruichi’s words ring in Grimmjow’s head for the rest of the day. They give him another sleepless night of staring at the empty bunk above him, eyes burning with exhaustion.

The thing is, Grimmjow isn’t sure who he’d bleed for anymore. The answer used to be simple: his sisters, the few people he cared about, the world if it asked him to. It’s not that simple anymore and he knows it can’t ever be again, he can’t allow it to be. Because the world had asked him to bleed and he’d said yes, and he’d stood unflinching in the face of utter destruction and bled his entire life into the cruel ocean. Had to watch it get washed away, pulled out with the tide and into the nothingness. Gone like it had never been there in the first place.

Grimmjow is all bled out, hollow. He thinks if anyone even tried to knock on his soul, all they would hear is an empty echo. A vessel ready to be filled, Dr. Unohana would have said, ready to receive new things, new people, new memories, new light. He doesn’t know how to tell her that he feels less like a vessel and more like empty space, a vacuum-void, sucking the life out of all that wander into it.

~

“My old man is a doctor,” Kurosaki tells him the next day, posted up at his desk with some complicated looking circuit board half-dismantled in front of him. Grimmjow had tried to sneak up on him, treading quietly while Kurosaki muttered away to himself. He’s got ears like a fuckin’ bat though and looks up to spot Grimmjow only halfway across the hanging bridge and grins.

He says it from around the tiniest screwdriver Grimmjow has ever seen clenched between his teeth, while long, nimble fingers spin an equally tiny screwdriver against the board. Grimmjow is folded around the railings like a pretzel, bottom bar digging into his ass as he sits on it, having ducked under the top one to drape his arms over. The drop behind him, hundreds and hundreds of feet to his violent death, doesn’t scare him the way it probably should. Doesn’t even seem to scare Kurosaki who’d barely blinked as Grimmjow had wound his way around the metal. And Grimmjow isn’t sure what that says about either of them.

“Always thought I’d be one too, maybe even a surgeon, before all this shit.” Kurosaki just glances up at him, looking exhausted and weary and so much older than he actually is, and should probably be allowed to look. Grimmjow’s cup of coffee is sitting on the far corner of Kurosaki’s desk, likely gone cold already. And Kurosaki doesn’t even bother to fuckin’ ask before he picks it up, takes a long swig of it, the column of his throat bobbing hypnotically as he swallows, before putting it back in precisely the same place.

“But taking apart and putting Jaegers back together is pretty close, I guess,” he says with a jerky shrug.

“Machines can’t die on your operating table,” Grimmjow points out morbidly and Kurosaki gives a wry smile to the circuit board.

“That’s probably a good thing.”

Kurosaki swaps out the screwdrivers, prying at one corner of the circuit board with blunt fingernails. He’s wearing his usual black coveralls with the sleeves tied around his waist, but his shirt today is closer to white, more a V neck than a scoop. When he hunches over the circuit board, nose nearly to the desk, the shirt hangs forward and Grimmjow can see the pinked edge of a scar in the center of his chest, just beneath the t-shirt’s collar. He wants to ask what happened, but doesn’t. Sometimes, Kurosaki answers the lighter questions like he’s read Grimmjow’s mind when they end up talking about something casually. He’s got sensitive-shit questions that he knows he doesn’t deserve the answers to: _how’d your brother and mom die, when did you become a Weapons Specialist and why, why are you in Tokyo_? They both seem to do their best to tiptoe around the sensitive shit though, their lost loved ones, the war. Kurosaki doesn’t stop Grimmjow when he mentions something about his sisters in passing, just stops what he’s doing and listens. He _has_ to know that they’ve made the decision to reactivate Grimmjow, but he never brings it up.

“Hey, can you— just hold this corner right here for a second. I gotta pull this wire out of here.” Kurosaki gestures to the sharp corner of the circuit board and Grimmjow leans over without even hesitating to grab a hold of the edge, head ducked around the railing to see properly. With equally blunt nails, he carefully struggles to pry the top and bottom apart. It resists him and he pulls a little harder, tries to be gentle because this shit looks important. “Little more,” Kurosaki rasps, cheek literally pressed to the top of the desk as he squints into the parting of the board, needle nose pliers at the ready.

Grimmjow grapples with the edge, trying to reposition his fingers, and curses lowly when the sharp point of the board slices into the tip of his one index finger. He grits his teeth and holds it steady, and Kurosaki is quick, hand darting forward and back in the span of a few seconds, a thin, white wire pinched between his pliers.

“Thanks,” Kurosaki mumbles, groping blindly for something else on the desk beside him as Grimmjow lets go.

“Sure,” Grimmjow says, easy, and sticks his bleeding finger in his mouth to suck the blood away. Grimacing around the bloom of copper on his tongue, he snags his coffee cup and downs what’s left of it to wash the taste away. It is cold, and Kurosaki didn’t leave him much, the bastard.

It’s not until later as Grimmjow is collapsing into bed, bone-weary and eyes drooping closed, that he thinks about it. He can’t stop thinking about it after that, holding his hand up and staring at his scabbed over finger in abject wonder until he passes out from pure exhaustion.

~

He’s giving his painfully brief report about his observations of the cadets he’d spent a week training to the Marshal the next day in the same conference room. Yoruichi had requested that he do so, part of paying his dues in the process or some shit. Grimmjow remarks on the few cadets that show promise, the ones with fire in their eyes and steel in their spine. Still, none of them are ready to step foot in a Jaeger. He wonders and hopes that Yoruichi and the Marshal are testing more than just those cadets, that there’s at least a few officers that they’ve suckered into this process, anyone with experience and an iron stomach.

“Have you given any more thought to picking any potential candidates that you know?” the Marshal asks when he finishes delivering his report.

Grimmjow seizes up a little, can’t fucking _believe_ he’s about to open his mouth and say what’s he’s about to say. But it’s there, a thought he just can’t shake, a hunch that feels like a sixth sense, a scab on his index finger he keeps picking at and reopening. “There is one guy,” he begins to say, glancing surreptitiously at the Marshal before training his gaze on the war clock.

“Oh?” intones the Marshal, grin still warm, open, flowered kimono draped over his lap like a blanket.

“Yeah, some J-tech officer, working the rebuild project.” It’s right fucking then that Grimmjow realizes he’s never bothered to learn Kurosaki’s first name, has never asked. And in the midst of his _shit-fuck-goddamn it_ epiphany, he doesn’t see the Marshal’s smile fall away. “I dunno, we chat sometimes. Seems like a good kid. Kurosaki something, one of the Weapons Specialists, orange hair, loud mouth. At least he would know his way around a Jaeger,” Grimmjow grumbles the last bit, thinking about all the wet behind the ears cadets who’d gotten shaky when Grimmjow told them locking their knees could result in hyperextension if a Kaiju bowled them and their Jaeger over.

He thinks about hauling Kurosaki off that dumb cadet almost a month ago. _A month, just a month,_ and there Grimmjow was essentially suggesting to his direct supervisor and the fucking Marshal of the Tokyo Shatterdome that he thought him and Kurosaki might be drift compatible. Didn’t even know the fucker’s first name and he was considering the possibility of sharing headspace with him. But all he can picture is Kurosaki’s gaze, as bright and as dangerous as the Breach, promising a challenge, pain, and a damned good fight. Grimmjow hasn’t been able to stop thinking about all that coiled energy finally having a space for release, of what it would be like to spar against Kurosaki, fight him. Of what those haunted eyes would look like under the lights of the combat room. He has no proof that the kid is even trained, but somehow Grimmjow knows in his gut that he is. Kurosaki is too dynamic, constantly crackling with kinetic energy even at a standstill, to be anything less than adept. Grimmjow knows he should have maybe asked first, let Kurosaki know that he’d been thinking about this, so the poor bastard doesn’t get blindsided by Yoruichi Shihouin of all fuckin’ people.

“I will… put the name in to Fightmaster Shihouin. I’m sure she’ll have no problem tracking him down.” The Marshal clears his throat and Grimmjow glances over at him sharply. “If he’s interested in taking the tests, then he can do so.”

Grimmjow narrows his eyes at his commanding officer, stares at him in scrutiny for a moment, thoughtful. It was way too late to take back what he’d just said, but somehow Grimmjow had thought that the Marshal would have disagreed, declined even because Grimmjow had said the kid was a Weapons Specialist. It was a big deal job, and they needed Rangers sure, but at the expense of someone with expertise like that? Maybe they needed Rangers far worse than Grimmjow had thought. Maybe the Marshal is just humoring him and his batshit insane request. He wants to ask for what feels like the umpteenth time why they’re rushing to reactivate him, but it isn’t a rush, not in the least. Grimmjow has been in Tokyo for a little over a year, doing essentially nothing but healing physically and mentally. Sure, he trains the cadets sometimes, gets _suckered_ into training the cadets sometimes, offers insight on missions and tactics after the fact, but nothing more than that.

It’s not a rush at all is the thing. They’ve been fucking generous as all hell if Grimmjow was being honest with himself. A whole _year_ and they’d not once asked him to return to duty, and not _once_ asked him to even step foot in the LOCCENT Mission Control room when any number of Jaegers were actively deployed against a Kaiju. They’d honored and respected his loss and resulting grief with a grace that Grimmjow wasn’t even capable of, granting him the space and the time to learn to cope and heal. Grimmjow had made a commitment to the PPDC seven years ago, it didn’t really matter that the two people he’d made that commitment with were gone now. He’d still made it and now they were asking him to honor that pledge.

Tokyo is huge, their patrol boundaries are immense considering the next closest Shatterdome is almost 800 miles away in Nagasaki. Grimmjow knows they need more than the three Jaegers they currently have to defend their coastline. It’s strange because not once since he’d lost his sisters did he ever think about the fact that he would never get into a Jaeger again. He just assumed they wouldn’t let him. Damaged goods, that’s what he’d told Kurosaki, but not damaged enough apparently. He knows he’s good, he knows he’s skilled, five Kaiju kills is nothing to scoff at. That’s five monsters he’d destroyed before they could hurt humanity. He’d been one out of three though, a piece of a whole, but now he was what remained, the scraps. But even crumbs mattered to a starving man.

“Thank you sir,” he says instead, squashing all those stupidly endless questions deep down to fester with the rest of them.

**~**

Grimmjow avoids Kurosaki and the bridge that he guards like some kind of troll for three days after giving the Marshal his name. But when he’s lost in thought, walking rounds of the Shatterdome to try and spend his restless energy, he always looks up and finds that he’s drifted towards the work-in-progress Jaeger. The first three days he manages to turn around and go another direction. He can’t go to Yoruichi and demand a fight to clear his head, she’s too busy conducting her physical compatibility tests. So, he ends up in the gym, or in Dr. Unohana’s office, or staring moodily out across the crowded refectory, wondering if one of the hundreds of people around him will be his next copilot.

On the third day, he doesn’t stop himself. If anything, Grimmjow dives in headfirst, stopping at the refectory and getting _two_ cups of coffee, as if he needs the caffeine. He’s just not so great at sharing anymore, something he’s going to have to become accustomed to again and quickly. He knows the moment he finds a suitable copilot that he can manage to drift with, they’ll likely be moved into his room with him. Standard procedure and all that. Grimmjow just hopes they’re not a light sleeper.

Kurosaki is working on something that looks a bit like a severed, metal hand with black wires sticking out of it when Grimmjow arrives. He sets the coffee down on Kurosaki’s desk, but he doesn’t even look up. He’s got welding goggles on instead of his full face shield today, a small soldering iron gripped in his gloved hand. He’s all hunched over in concentration and Grimmjow is moderately impressed and a little disappointed to see that he’s actually wearing his coveralls properly today, sleeves and all.

“What’s that?” Grimmjow asks immediately, taking a tentative sip of his coffee. It warms his chest and his hands which is excellent because it’s colder than shit in the Shatterdome today. Cold and damp and it’s raining so heavily that Grimmjow can hear it hitting the roof even over all the usual noise. He pulls the sleeves of his sweater down over the tips of his fingers as best as he can, alternating hands with his warm cup.

“A miniaturized prototype of a weapon we’re retrofitting the Jaeger with,” Kurosaki responds quickly, rotating the metal gauntlet delicately. “Now, shush, gotta concentrate.”

Kurosaki doesn’t say anything, doesn’t look any different, doesn’t speak to Grimmjow any differently. He’s got no tells. So, Grimmjow doesn’t know if the Marshal has already spoken to him, if Yoruichi has already pulled him aside and tested his physical capabilities, if Dr. Unohana has evaluated him or not. The three of them haven’t said shit to Grimmjow either, so he tries to put it out of his head. Kurosaki is a lockbox, a fucking bank vault wrapped in tanned, human skin, he’s sure of this. So, Grimmjow watches, orbiting around Kurosaki’s chair, varies between standing and watching over Kurosaki’s shoulders and moving from one side of the desk to another. It’s literally a metal glove, all polished, gleaming steel, like something out of an old superhero movie. The fingertips are weirdly shaped, rounded to small openings like a nozzle, and Grimmjow wonders what the hell they’re for. Kurosaki tolerates his pacing for all of twenty minutes before it seems to get the better of him.

“You’re like a big jungle cat in a zoo,” Kurosaki gripes finally, setting the soldering iron down with a thunk and pushing his goggles up onto his forehead to glare at Grimmjow. “Just pacing around your tiny enclosure. Sit the fuck down already, you’re giving me anxiety.”

Grimmjow ignores the jab and points at the metal hand through his sweater. “You gonna show me what that does?”

Kurosaki doesn’t even blink at his demand. “It’s classified,” he replies a little smugly.

Grimmjow leers down at him with a sharp laugh, all teeth and blue eyes and persuasion. “It’s gonna be mine in like a month, tops, so what the hell does it matter?”

Kurosaki stares at him with a furrowed brow and pursed lips as the gears turn in his head, like he’s weighing the consequences of spilling the beans against his own desire to share whatever he’s created. There’s a red line across the bridge of his nose from the goggles, small marks on his cheeks where they rested. They draw even more attention to the dark circles under his eyes, almost as dark as Grimmjow’s. He wonders why Kurosaki always looks so fucking tired, as tired as Grimmjow feels. Assembling a Jaeger from scratch can’t be restful work by any stretch of the imagination. Grimmjow holds that molten gaze, moving to lean against the railing as a small acquiescence.

“Each finger channels an atmospheric plasma beam,” he begins to explain, turning the metal gauntlet over in his hands so that it’s palm up.

“Pretend I’m stupid and say that again.”

“Pretend?” Kurosaki parrots, cocking his head to the side like a curious dog. He ruins it with a shit-eating grin.

“Oh, fuck you,” Grimmjow laughs, warmth that has nothing to do with coffee zinging through him.

“In theory…” Kurosaki says, pulling the gauntlet on over his gloved hand. He leans over to push a switch on the car battery looking box at his feet beside him and slips a finger up beneath the loose forearm portion for what Grimmjow assumes is another switch because something within the metal begins to whir softly. He holds his hand high, palm facing Grimmjow, and flexes his fingers experimentally before spreading them as wide as the metal will allow. A soft click sounds and then all five fingertips ignite in concentrated flame as blue as Kaiju blood. They taper off into points towards the end as each beam holds steady, looking not unlike sharpened claws. “It would do something like that.”

Kurosaki delicately hovers his index finger over the wood of his desk and the blue-plasma claw sears a jagged hole right through it in a second. He absolutely beams up at Grimmjow, tired face etched with an almost childlike glee and pride, all bright eyes and even brighter hair.

Grimmjow is a little in love and fucking doomed.

**~**

Grimmjow dislikes everything about the Tokyo Shatterdome’s Chief LOCCENT officer Shinji Hirako _except_ the way he runs Jaeger missions. He hates his stupid sideways-cut bangs, his expression that’s always some cross between uninterested and just plain irritating, his awful drawling way of talking. He’s a lazy bastard in Grimmjow’s opinion, and the only thing he can be bothered to do is his job so it’s probably a good thing that he’s pretty damn excellent at it. He handles the chaos of LOCCENT with ease and startling calm, runs it just like the well-oiled machines he’s conducting. In fact, Grimmjow doesn’t think he’s ever seen Hirako even raise his voice. He hasn’t really spent an extended amount of time around the officer to know him well, but his hard, already formed opinion of his gets reinforced the next time he’s summoned to the conference room by the Marshal.

It’s four days after Kurosaki had demonstrated his weapons prototype, gifting Grimmjow with a singularly beatific smile that had made his eyes crinkle in the corners, and Grimmjow had honestly been fucking scatterbrained ever since. But he’s sat in a chair opposite the Marshal and Hirako, the latter of whom had thrown his arm around Grimmjow’s shoulders upon sauntering into the room like they were the best of friends. Marshal Kyouraku doesn’t say anything, sips neatly at his tea as Hirako slouches into a chair beside him, setting his tablet on the table. Pleasantries and brief casual conversation aside, Grimmjow’s heart feels like it’s lodged itself in his throat because he knows what this meeting is about. It’s been almost two weeks after all.

“We have several candidates picked out for the compatibility test,” Hirako says, shuffling his finger across the screen propped up in front of him.

“Yeah? And how many of them have actually piloted a fuckin’ Jaeger before?” Grimmjow snaps, unable to restrain his anger. The disappointing answer he’s expecting is written all over Hirako’s face.

“One,” Marshal Kyouraku answers and Grimmjow’s neck nearly wrenches as he turns to look at him. “But they are our last resort candidate; our backup should all the other candidates fail.”

“Why?” Grimmjow forces himself to haul in a calming breath and ease some of the tension out of his jaw before he cracks a tooth or something.

“Well, you see—” Hirako begins to say, reefing about at lightning speed, colors flashing across his face as he searches for something specific. The Marshal holds up a hand and fixes Grimmjow with a hard look that almost looks out of place in his mild face.

“Their previous co-pilot was killed in action and we are unsure of how compatible and stable a drift would be between the two of you given your circumstances.”

Grimmjow full-body flinches, anger draining out of him in a rush and a sickening wave of empathy and grief flooding in after it. _Jesus,_ he thinks, gut aching like he’s been kicked. It was rare for a Jaeger pilot to even cross paths with a pilot who had lost their other half in some way, rarer even for two pilots who had suffered the same loss to meet. Too often when a Jaeger went down, her pilots went down with her, like a captain with their ship. Grimmjow can’t help but wonder _who_ this other pilot lost: a sibling, a parent, a best friend, a spouse, in addition to losing the other half of their soul. They don’t talk about it, losing your copilot. The grief always feels as fresh as the day it happened. But Grimmjow knows they’re already in dire straits if they’ve re-recruited another Ranger like him, someone as equally fucked in the head. Any one of those greenhorn cadets is beginning to look overtly appealing in comparison now.

“We asked them to come out of retirement as a potential candidate because of their experience,” Marshal Kyoraku goes on to clarify and Grimmjow can feel the man’s dark eye watching him intently as he stares blankly at the tabletop. “They agreed and transferred to Tokyo not too long ago, but as of right now they’re still settling in, filling other duties in the meantime.”

Grimmjow licks his lips, mouth feeling as dry as a desert, the words caught in his throat. But he has to _know._ “How?” he asks, voice barely a murmur. Hirako and Marshal Kyouraku exchange glances on his periphery and Grimmjow can see the Marshal’s curt nod, the way Hirako’s shoulders slump as he gently tap-taps at something that lights his face in white.

“On a mission, a Category 3 Kaiju, codename Silverlance, off the coast of Vladivostok. The Jaeger was attacked defending the coastline, the hull was severely damaged, and the Conn-pod breached. Pilot 1 was grievously injured and Pilot 2—” Hirako stops to suck in a breath that sounds like it shakes a little, gazing unblinkingly down at the report, “sustained a mortal wound to the chest and was killed.”

 _Shit, shit, fuck_ is all Grimmjow can think, anguish overwhelming him like a wave of nausea. It’s almost strong enough to distract Grimmjow from the fact that Hirako is purposefully leaving out the names of the pilots and their Jaeger, as if he’s afraid that Grimmjow is going to recognize them. The internal mantra of disbelief and understanding is a droning in the back of his head, a tune of distress that Hirako proceeds to crank the volume up on.

“And they remained neurally linked until the total brain death of Pilot 2, while Pilot 1 solo-piloted the Jaeger, dispatching Silverlance and bringing the Jaeger back to shore.”

Grimmjow can’t help his reaction as he stands in a rush, knocking his chair over in the process, gripping the edge of the table for stability until his knuckles go white against his skin. The same ice-cold hysteria of an anxiety attack builds in his chest as he opens his mouth to take a breath and only manages to gasp shallowly like a fish out of water. He turns in a daze, ears ringing so loud that the other voices that call out to him are muffled. He manages to stumble out of the LOCCENT conference room and the main control room. He makes it a hundred feet down the empty hall before his knees give out and he slumps against the wall, sliding down in a rush. Shaky breaths rattle in his lungs and he presses the heels of his palms into his eyes so hard that he sees stars. _God_ , he— they’d already been knocked out of alignment from their Jaeger’s damaged electrical circuits, disconnected, when – _fucking Christ –_ they hadn’t been connected when it had all happened. Grimmjow had been alone in his head at the end, hadn’t felt them go.

He couldn’t fathom remaining neurally linked to his dying copilot. Couldn’t imagine having the strength, the resolve, the willpower to fucking live, long enough to finish a fight _alone_ and return _alone._ To _feel_ every last agonizing second as his copilot’s brain _died_ , as the other half of his soul died, right there beside him, just out of reach, and keep going anyway. _Fuck, fuck, fuck._

 _‘A brave Ranger,’_ a quiet voice sounding distinctly like Nelliel’s echoes in the back of his head. He digs his palms into his eyes even harder, until it starts to hurt, pulling his knees up to his chest and folding in on himself.

 _‘A warrior,’_ sounds Tier’s voice in quick succession. _‘One who deserves to be left in peace, if we can.’_

And Grimmjow can feel them, like they’re right there on either side of him, Nel’s arms wrapped tightly around his heaving shoulders, Tier’s long legs pressed inch-for-inch against the side of his own, stuck to him like they’d been glued that way. Grimmjow aches in his bones, marrow-deep and blisteringly fresh, as the ghosts of his dead sisters hold him as he shakes. His chest hurts like somebody has cracked his ribcage open and crushed something important.

Sometime later – it feels like a millennia though it’s likely only a few minutes – there’s a hand on his shoulder, a real, physical hand, that draws him out of his own head, away from the voices of his siblings. He pulls his hands away from his eyes and waits for the colors and stars to clear away slowly so he can see Dr. Retsu Unohana gazing patiently at him, all warmth and openness, and _God_ , they called his fucking psychologist down here, how embarrassing.

She’s squatted down in front of him, black hair in a long braid that hangs over her shoulder, her grey-blue eyes radiating their usual calm, and she doesn’t withdraw her hand as she smiles gently at him. “It’s alright, Grimmjow,” she murmurs, giving just the lightest squeeze to his shoulder, tactile and grounding. “You’re safe here. It’s just you and me.”

“Have you met them?” Grimmjow rasps, figuring whoever had called her— the Marshal more than likely— had at least bothered to tell her what had caused the shitshow that he currently is.

She looks at him a moment, gauging his current state, before nodding slowly. “I have.”

“How’d they do it?” he stresses, eyes wide in silent pleading, as he searches her face for the answer to the question he asks in every single one of their sessions. _How do I make it go away? How do I make it stop hurting? How do I make it all stop without losing their voices, without losing what’s left of them?_

The smile she offers him is kind but sorrowful, and she gives his shoulder another grounding squeeze. “They’re still working on it. It’s a process, remember?”

With the help of her hand on his shoulder, he hauls in a deep breath to steady himself, feels the presence of Nel and Tier recede like the ocean returning to low tide. Still there, always, _always_ there, just at a manageable distance. A lingering presence of comfort.

“Why don’t you and I go get a cup of coffee and sit down in my office? We can talk some more, if you’d like?”

Grimmjow has never known when to surrender, always hung in a fight until somebody either pulled him out or knocked him out. He’d always thought of it as a show of power, a show of strength, not to back down no matter the circumstances. Tier used to tell him that mentality was going to get the three of them killed. And it did, and it had taken a year of ongoing therapy for Grimmjow to know that it wasn’t _his_ fault, even though most days it still felt like it was. He thinks about fighting now. He thinks about the other Ranger, body mangled, their dying co-pilot still connected to them in every way that mattered, and continuing to fight. He thinks about standing up, declining Dr. Unohana’s offer, and going literally anywhere but here, probably down to the gym, but he doesn’t. He knows that there’s strength in surrender, in fighting to see another day no matter how much it hurts. He stands up, and he nods laconically at the doctor’s invitation, and they walk silently side-by-side down to the refectory.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I jump around a lot in this chapter. Had a lot of different things I wanted to cover and got carried away in typical fashion. 
> 
> Thanks for all the love. Y'all are the best and I love you a million. 🖤

**~**

_“Espadas ready for the drop,” Grimmjow says tersely into the comm-system, releasing the button to reach up and adjust his helmet that’s been digging into his chin weirdly since he put it on. He grimaces, unseen, and thinks that one of the techs must have fucked something up._

_“Lighten up, Grimmy,” Nel chimes at his right and he rolls his eyes so hard he can feel her frown at him and they’re not even drifting yet._

_Left, centered, right hemisphere, Grimmjow, Nel, Tier. A long time ago, they’d squabbled through the night over who would get to pilot from which position, a shouting match that devolved into a pillow fight that devolved into an outright fistfight. It was common knowledge that the right hemisphere pilot was considered the dominant one and to have not two but three pilots with ridiculously strong personalities try to decide which of them would be best where was never going to end well. Naturally, the Psych Analyst and the Marshal had already made their own decisions, rightly, and it had been a quick moment of pulling rank to put the three siblings into their proper places. Tier as their dominant right hemisphere, the right side of the Jaeger’s body, the eldest of them, the most focused and in control. Nel as their gunner and main defense, the middle child, the force holding them together, stabilized. Grimmjow as the left hemisphere, the left side of the Jaeger’s body, the youngest of the three, explosive energy and razor-sharp instincts._

_“You lighten up,” he replies childishly. Nel laughs just before the suspension system withdraws completely and the Jaeger head plummets. The adrenalin of the drop whips through Grimmjow as the Jaeger’s head finds home between the shoulders of Tres Espadas’ body and the heavy clang of everything coupling into place sounds in their Conn-pod. The initiation of their neural handshake is seamless, no hiccups or hitches, they’re god damn professionals after all, and Grimmjow isn’t even in Nel’s head yet but he already knows what she’s going to do._

_They’ve barely stabilized when she sends visions of the weird, gangly fucker she’s been pursuing through their headspace. “Oh, c’mon, Nel! Keep that shit to yourself.”_

_“You know I can’t,” she sing-songs and Grimmjow fake-gags out loud, knowing it’ll bring Tier into it. He nudges at her through the drift, trying to goad her into the conversation,_

_“Don’t know what you see in him,” Tier finally says as the entire Jaeger lurches forward, gravity pulling at her and Grimmjow’s joints, an echo of sensation as the mechanized platform propels them forward._

_“He’s all legs, no torso. Where’s the rest of him? His pants practically go up to his fuckin’ chin,” Grimmjow gripes as the Bay 3 blast doors of the Lima Shatterdome yawn open wide, revealing the black sky void of stars and the dark churn of the ocean before them. Grimmjow squints despite himself as sideways rain blasts against the visual field of their Jaeger. The Peruvian coast stretches out on either side of them, a twinkle of city lights on the horizon, a city of eleven million people. He can hear the Kaiju alarms blaring from the city, can picture people scrambling to grab their prized possessions and hurry for a bunker._

_“Okay, Mr. I-can’t-be-bothered-to-wear-a-shirt-under-my-jacket-sometimes. You don’t have any legs to stand on here,” Nel snaps._

_“Good evening, Espadas,” comes the voice of the Lima Shatterdome’s Marshal, Byakuya Kuchiki, just as Grimmjow flips Nel the bird and she sticks her tongue out at him._

_“Marshal,” they reply in stereo, knowing it freaks him out, though he’d sooner die than admit that._

_“We have a Category 3 that has emerged, K-watch reports that it’s relatively low in weight for its size assignment. Your orders are to hold the coastline while Los Lobos frontlines the Miracle Mile.”_

_The three of them groan in frustration: there was nothing they disliked more than running defense. And with Coyote Starrk and Lilynette Gingerbuck as primary in their Strike Group, the three of them would be lucky if they even saw the Kaiju. Grimmjow pulls up their radar map and pinpoints the location of the other Jaeger, just a scant few miles ahead of them. There’s a snowball’s chance in hell that they’re gonna get a piece of that, and he resigns himself to what can only be a gruelingly boring couple of hours._

_The ocean churns black, and far on the horizon, the only light visible is that of the helicopters shining their beacons down on the battleground beneath them. It’s too far to see clearly, and all Grimmjow and his sisters can see is the faintest silhouette of Los Lobos, pacing almost._

_“The hell are they doing, waiting for an invitation?” Grimmjow says as Tier hums her agreement and he reaches up to connect to the comm-system and ask just that._

_“We don’t see shit!” Lilynette’s voice comes screeching into all of their ears, louder and pitched higher than normal. “LOCCENT, where is this slippery asshole?”_

_“It’s moving almost too fast to track, hang on,” comes the crackling reply from LOCCENT and Grimmjow frowns, all three of them do. Fast. Relatively low in weight for its size assignment, that’s what the Marshal had said._

_“Espadas, engage at your discretion,” Marshal Kuchiki’s stern voice cuts through the momentary mayhem._

_It’s not the discretion that ends up mattering, nothing does the moment that the ocean spews in front of them like a geyser and out of it leaps the Kaiju, jaw wide with a roar._

_The Kaiju takes them out at the waist like they’re not nearly two thousand tons of metal, toppling them down and submerging them under the roiling waves. Grimmjow and Tier take the brunt of it, their linked hemispheres of left and right the most connected to their Jaeger physically. It’s all instinct, the way the three of them gasp in a startled breath as though it’s their own heads going under. Everything blurs a little as they struggle, Grimmjow howling with a rage that Tier echoes as they try to grapple the Kaiju into submission, grasping it in a stranglehold and pivoting with its momentum to put their Jaeger back on its feet. Nel’s already entered the command to deploy all three arm’s swords when the most awful screeching noise they’ve ever heard echoes in their Conn-pod. He swears he sees a claw of some kind in his left-hand periphery, but he’s distracted by the screaming sound of metal tearing under inhuman strength, rivets popping, a hurricane of sparks._

_The entire Jaeger is thrown forward and Grimmjow cracks his head against something, the face shield of his helmet shattering on impact. A keening in his ears, blistering pain as something gouges his right cheek open. Hot blood down his jaw, into the fabric of his circuitry suit, into his mouth. He chokes on the copper of it, spitting it into his ruined helmet. He doesn’t know what gets him next, whether it’s something in the Jaeger or the Kaiju itself, but it’s pain, only pain. Searing agony that all but bifurcates him, melting through the armor of his Drivesuit, cauterizing the polycarbonate into his skin from collarbone to hip. He can feel the scrape of alien claws as they grab ahold of their Jaeger’s left arm, can feel them like they’re holding his own arm. They might as well be. And it doesn’t feel like the arm of the machine he’s piloting when the Kaiju cleaves it from Tres Espadas’ body; it feels like his own._

_He screams, couldn’t stop himself if he wanted to. A broken howl of anguish and everything whites out for a second. The rig is the only thing that holds him up as he goes limp in the supports, body seizing at the mental simulation of having his left arm severed off at the shoulder. He can’t keep the pain in his own headspace anymore, it floods out as ocean water floods in, the roar of it deafening. Arm, an arm, he’s missing an arm, he wants to cry out but doesn’t. He touches his chest in hazy disbelief and his glove slides down the damage, slick with a concerning amount of blood._

_It’s a good thing and the worst thing when everything goes black a moment later. All three of them are electrocuted out of alignment as the loss of power breaks their neural connection, and Grimmjow goes from having two voices in his head suffering alongside him, to being utterly alone. It’s pitch black in the Conn-pod, black and a sinister red as the emergency lights flash and the only thing he can hear over the ringing in his ears is the sound of water rushing in at an alarming rate and a Kaiju shrieking just outside. To the right of him, it’s only silence. That’s the moment he realizes he didn’t really take the brunt of that assault._

**~**

He doesn’t wake shouting or screaming that morning. Just gasps into consciousness, eyes flying open to the familiar sight of the bunk above him. He’s soaked, pillow uncomfortably damp against the back of his head, and he reaches up to grasp his dog tags, centering himself, hauling in deep breaths.

Grimmjow hasn’t had that dream in months. It’s more of a copy of the memory than an actual dream; his subconscious never twists the facts, plays it like a movie to an unwilling audience of one. He reaches up and puts a palm flat to his bare left shoulder, prods at the joint and the muscle, the way it aches though nothing ails it. Phantom pain, that’s what the doctors had told him it was. The kind of pain that usually only amputees felt when a limb had been taken from them in any manner. His brain and nerves remembering an arm that had been ripped from his body, even though it hadn’t truly been his body.

He reaches up to scrub a hand down his face, wipe some of the sweat away, and moves to swing his legs over the side of the bed and put his bare feet on the cold concrete. The dream always cuts right off there too, and he’s more grateful than he can ever verbalize. Because the mayhem that follows… the sound of Los Lobos reengaging just outside, Grimmjow forcibly disconnecting himself from the rig when he shouts both his sister’s names and gets no answer. He can’t even remember what the last thing he said to either one of them was. Nothing important he was sure, considering his habit of running his mouth sometimes. Nothing like _I love you both_ , or _please don’t leave me._

_I don’t know who I am without you._

Forcing himself to his feet, he wanders towards the open door of the en-suite bathroom. He stops in front of the mirror and tries not to grimace at his appearance: haggard, pale, dark circles like bruises, blue hair matted to his head. With shaking fingers, he traces the scar on his right cheek. He has no feeling there anymore. Whatever had gouged his cheek open that night had cut right through the meat of his face, even chipping one of his back molars. He drops his hand, follows the expanse of scar tissue that flows from his collarbones, down across his chest, tapering off just above the swell of muscle at his right hip. More feeling there, but not much.

It was something he used to laugh at, a line that characters in bad TV shows or even worse, real fuckin’ people on news reports, used to say: it all happened so fast. Muggings, car accidents, you name it and he’d heard some poor sucker say it into a camera. It had always seemed like the poorest excuse for the painfully distracted or unaware. How could you not know, he used to think. Weren’t you paying attention? What do you mean it came out of nowhere?

But it was the only thing he could tell the doctors and the Marshal, flat on his back on a gurney as they sprinted down a lower level hallway while he soaked the bedsheets with his blood, rushing to get him in for emergency surgery.

_It all happened so fast._

**~**

Dr. Retsu Unohana’s office is one of the most comforting spaces in all the Tokyo Shatterdome, save for Yoruichi’s room. She’s got a fuckin’ window that looks out to the city and how she swung that, Grimmjow will never know. Somehow, the doctor has managed to make the concrete walls feel anything but cold and blank. Art adorns them, lots of Japanese scroll art, a couple of her framed diplomas rightfully boasting her achievements. It’s all decent shit to stare unblinkingly at when Grimmjow starts to feel himself dissociate during bad sessions, much like this one.

His coffee sits half-drank on the edge of the doctor’s desk and she sits quietly, observing him, as he stares at a scroll depicting a snowy bridge over a gentle, blue river. He keeps having to remind himself to release his hands when he realizes he’s gripping the arms of the chair too tight. He’s been giving her half-aware answers, still trying to squash his reaction and all the nasty emotions that had surfaced with it. The exact opposite of what she wants him to do, of course. The exact opposite of what he should be doing, he knows that, that’s why he’s in her office after all.

“I should be doing better than this,” he murmurs finally, still staring at the snowy scene. He can’t even remember the last time he’s seen snow.

In the corner of his eye, he sees Dr. Unohana’s brow crease slightly as she watches him. “Why do you think that?”

Grimmjow hauls in a deep breath through his nose, holds it in until his lungs ache, before letting it out slowly. “I shouldn’t have reacted like that. People die. It happens. Especially Rangers, I just—”

“Empathized deeply?” Dr. Unohana finishes for him and Grimmjow grits his teeth. “There’s nothing wrong about the way you reacted Grimmjow. Those are your genuine feelings on the matter and trying to pretend that they’re not there or that they don’t exist isn’t going to do you any good.”

“I know, I know, I just—” he stops to take another deep, grounding breath that doesn’t do much good. “I can’t take this shit into the drift with me. It’d be unfair.”

“Any future copilot of yours will be understanding of what you have been through, Grimmjow. If you don’t feel ready—”

“You already consented!” he bellows at her, sitting forward in the chair, gripping the armrests tightly. “You already told them I was ready! I have to be ready; I have to be.”

“Grimmjow,” she begins with a soft voice, seemingly unstartled by his outburst. “I gave my signature because I do believe you’re ready. But if _you_ don’t believe, then you don’t have to do this. It can all stop right here.”

“No, no I have to do this,” he says quickly, heart thudding hard in his chest.

Her hands don’t move from where they’re clasped atop her desk. She never takes notes during their sessions, Grimmjow has always just assumed she does it afterwards because she probably knows he’d fixate on it. “Why?” she presses, voice gentle, grey eyes even gentler.

“Because it’s my job! It’s my duty. I made a commitment to the PPDC. I know what’s going on out there alright, I’m not fuckin’ oblivious,” he seethes, a washing of anxious energy flooding through him. He wants to get up and pace, the way he does in his room when he’s alone, but knows he shouldn’t. “I know the Kaiju are only getting bigger, stronger, that it won’t be long until Category 4’s are coming through. _I know._ ”

“Your life is not expendable, Grimmjow. No one in this Shatterdome thinks that. Certainly not the Marshal, or the Fightmaster, nor myself.” It should be reassuring to hear that, but it isn’t. It’s not even that he’s ever felt that way or thought that his superiors regarded him or his sisters in that manner. Rangers are treated like rock stars, practically worshipped, and it’s no secret that they’re the lynchpin holding the world together right now.

“I know I can do this,” he says through clenched teeth. Needing something to do with all his restless energy, he reaches for his cup of coffee and takes a swig. Ice cold, but he takes another drink anyway. When he sets the coffee cup back down, he meets the doctor’s gaze and lets her stare at him in that unnervingly perceptive way of hers.

“Are you afraid?” she asks.

“No,” Grimmjow says immediately, scoffing. But then he hesitates, brain preceding his mouth for once. “Maybe.” She waits him out in soothing silence like she always does.

“I’m not afraid to do it, to get back into a Jaeger, to have to fight.” He stares down at the knuckles of his right hand, forcibly relaxes his fingers again, let’s go of the armrest. “I’m afraid to have something – _someone_ — who matters to me again. Because I know how fast they could be taken away. I don’t want to have to do _this_ all over again. No offense, Doc.”

“Do you remember how you described yourself to me when you first transferred to Tokyo?” she questions, and he does remember.

He can remember sitting in this very room, feeling so small, which was ridiculous all things considered. Small, and raw, like someone had flayed his skin off and left him out in the Lima sun to rot. They hadn’t bothered to put him in front of a shrink while he was still in Lima recovering physically. They thought that it would slow the healing process, letting him sit down with someone to help talk him through his grief. It didn’t matter now and there was no use dwelling on it, but Grimmjow stewed for a month and a half before they transferred him to Tokyo where, on day one, Dr. Unohana had insisted that they meet for the first time. He can hardly remember it now; knows he likely dissociated through the whole damn thing and didn’t speak to her at all. It wasn’t until maybe the third or fourth session that he actually spoke in complete sentences.

“I said I was untethered,” he recalls slowly, the statement like a shard of ice in his chest.

“Yes, you told me you were lost at sea, treading water, that you were tired.” He remembers, remembers feeling like waves were pulling him under while he sat in this very chair in front of her. “What you have been doing here is swimming in the right direction, Grimmjow. You’ve made it so far. You’re so very near the shore. I know it’s not the same shore you left before you went out to sea, but—”

“But it’s land nonetheless,” he murmurs, the cold in his chest melting just a little.

“We fixate sometimes, when we’ve been swimming for so long, on the land we left and wanting to return there, when any land, any stability, is truly what we need. Don’t think of this as a duty, that takes away your act of choice, Grimmjow. And you _do_ get a choice. And if you choose to do this, if you choose to take on another copilot and get back into a Jaeger, do not do so out of _duty_.”

He mulls that over for a moment, tries hard not to consider the fact that it seems a little like blasphemy for the Psych Analyst herself to be telling him not to think of his duty to his Shatterdome. But he’s so attached to the idea of _choice_ , that he gets to choose. He hasn’t had much of that in his life. Sure, he chose to join the Jaeger Academy, but the choices had all but evaporated from there. Someone had _chosen_ him and his sisters to be Rangers, someone had _chosen_ their Jaeger for them, they were _chosen_ for each mission they went on. Grimmjow didn’t _choose_ to be deployed that night, he didn’t _choose_ to outlive his sisters, he didn’t _choose_ to transfer to Tokyo. But everyone here had been trying to give him the space to do so: Yoruichi, always asking if he wanted to train the cadets. Dr. Unohana, always reading him expertly and never pushing him more than he wanted to be pushed. The Marshal, giving him the opportunity to submit people of his _choice_ to be tested for compatibility.

“I want to help,” he states, feeling a little emboldened. “I know the world needs it and I know I can provide it. I want to do it, but I don’t want it to change anything.”

“We are the choices we make, Grimmjow, and they will change us regardless. So, make sure the ones you make are the ones you want to shape you.”

**~**

The entire walk to Kurosaki’s little troll bridge feels like a punishment. Grimmjow is jittery, full of roiling, nervous energy that desperately needs an outlet. He knows he has one considering the candidate trials start in an hour. The testing is supposed to take upwards of three days with candidates spaced out to allow Grimmjow to have proper recovery time. If he had it his way, he’d get it done all in one day, just get it over with. As it will be now, it’s two whole nights he’ll have to lie in bed trying to fall asleep, mulling each candidate over obsessively. He knows compatibility is more than just matching physically, although that’s crucial considering Grimmjow can’t carry a Jaeger by himself. It’s finding a suitable match to his style, to his approach to an opponent. It’s meant to be a dialogue, to see if two people can follow the other’s line of thought. Yoruichi has always made fun of him and the way he moves when they spar though. He’s too confident for it to give him a complex, but damn if she doesn’t try.

_“Predatory, weirdly graceful, feel like I’m being stalked.”_

He’d laid her out for calling him graceful the first time, nearly concussing her, and they’d spent the rest of the night outside trading a bottle of vodka back and forth that Grimmjow knew without having to ask where she’d gotten it.

Grimmjow was showered— pointless really since he’ll spend the rest of the day sweating his ass off— but he couldn’t stand the idea of leaving his room soaked in nightmare sweat. He knows half the barely contained energy is from the double-whammy that yesterday was. Enough to drive him to dream of _that night._ But at the end of the catwalk is a head of orange hair that has become stupidly familiar in such a short time, bent over the same desk it always is. The knot in Grimmjow’s chest stays tight as his footsteps eat up the distance between them. He leans against the railing beside Kurosaki’s desk and doesn’t say anything, just stares at Kurosaki’s hair and the way it’s standing up funny in the back where the strap of his welding goggles has disheveled it.

“Isn’t today your first trials? The hell you doing here?” Kurosaki asks without looking up from the metal glove he’s still working on. The tiny soldering iron is gripped in his gloved fingers again, the smoke that billows up reflecting in the dark lens of his goggles. He’s clothed properly today, sleeves on and all, coveralls zipped right up to his throat, obscuring the curious scar tissue on his chest.

Kurosaki stops with a melodramatic huff and sits upright, reaching to push his goggles up onto his forehead. He looks at Grimmjow with narrowed eyes, assessing as they flit over his leaning posture and unfixed gaze. They stop on the dark circles under Grimmjow’s eyes and narrow even further for a fleeting moment before a wry smile pulls at one corner of his mouth.

“What, do you plan to sleep on them? Secret move?”

Grimmjow gives him an exasperated look, but doesn’t grace those questions with a response. He wants to ask so bad it almost physically hurts not to. _Are you one of the candidates today?_ He knows that if Kurosaki did get notified, did agree to be tested, and actually passed, that he’s likely been instructed not to say anything to anyone, especially to Grimmjow. Yoruichi herself wouldn’t tell him anything in case it caused any bias. Kurosaki has his poker face on again, the one that gives literally nothing away. The man’s a fucking sphynx and Grimmjow wants to punch him in the nose just to shake him up, wants to see him crack. It’s a violent sort of urge that washes over him, aided by the fidgety energy trapped just under his skin.

“Wouldn’t you like to know, Weapons Specialist?” Grimmjow leers. “We can’t all hold down a desk job.”

It’s not meant to be nasty, and Grimmjow realizes that maybe it came out that way anyway. But Kurosaki just rolls his eyes as if Grimmjow is being ridiculous. He sets his soldering iron down while he bites at the fingertips of one glove, pulling it off. He sets them both down on the desk and slouches down in his chair, moving to hook one arm across the back of it as he regards Grimmjow quietly.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you… Did you ask to be reactivated?” Kurosaki questions without preamble, staring at Grimmjow with his head cocked like a curious puppy, eyes of molten amber staring at him intently. It’s hard to hold that gaze when he answers him, so Grimmjow doesn’t, looks over Kurosaki’s shoulder to the still unpainted Jaeger, his Jaeger. A week, maybe two is all that stands between him and that Jaeger and his new copilot. The thought makes acid churn in his stomach.

“No,” he says gruffly, grapples with the right words to say to explain himself as Kurosaki’s head bobs in understanding. Grimmjow doesn’t know how to explain the precipice that he feels like he’s standing on; a step back being one to the security of what he has now, a step forward being one towards the uncertainty of everything new.

Kurosaki sucks his bottom lip in and nibbles it a little, looking thoughtfully down at his invention. “My old man always says that there are three choices to everything: what is morally right, what you want, and what must be done.” He glances furtively up at Grimmjow who can’t help but stare, enraptured. “You seem like the kinda guy who’d always pick option two or three.”

And that, those words, they take the knot that’s formed in Grimmjow’s chest and yank it _hard,_ hard enough to get the whole thing to unravel. Kurosaki reaches to sheepishly rub at the back of his neck, the lightest tinge of pink rising in his cheeks as he looks away. Grimmjow stares, has no shame left to give a shit anyway. He stares at Kurosaki’s warm skin, the pink-silver of the scar the slices through his left eye. Grimmjow has only ever had two people in his head, Nel and Tier. He’s only ever had two people that understood him, who saw him for who he was, what he stood for, what he fought for. How Kurosaki, mouthy, irreverent, Weapons Specialist Kurosaki has managed to peg Grimmjow with some quoted dad-wisdom and a sheepish smile has gotta be a miracle of some kind.

“You callin’ me immoral, Kurosaki?” Grimmjow asks instead, leaning over with a sharp smile to cover the way his quickened pulse has to be jumping in his throat.

“Maybe,” Kurosaki replies with a sly smile that makes heat coil low in Grimmjow’s gut and a righteously inappropriate image invade his brain. “Go kick some ass. Maybe I’ll let _you_ put this glove on if you come by later,” Kurosaki says with a grin of pure, smug sunshine.

He sits forward and reaches for his gloves again, giving Grimmjow little choice in the matter of hanging around. So, Grimmjow slinks away quietly, carrying Kurosaki’s words with him. Words that echo what Dr. Unohana had been telling him yesterday. That he has a choice, that he’s making a choice. Maybe Kurosaki didn’t consent to being tested. If so, he certainly wasn’t acting like he intended to treat Grimmjow any differently, and that was— that was _good._ It meant Kurosaki had made a choice, that he could practice what he preached. _What must be done._ And this must be done, Grimmjow knew that, holds that conviction strongly as he rides the elevator down into the bowels of the Shatterdome.

Grimmjow’s smiling a little despite himself when he enters the Kwoon Combat room several minutes later. Doesn’t realize he is until Yoruichi reaches out and tugs hard on his hair at the nape of his neck.

“Stop smiling, you’re gonna scare the candidates.”

“Fuckin’ good.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love reading all your thoughts and the parts of the chapter that you resonated with, so thank you for all the lovely comments and thank you for all your support lately.
> 
> This absolutely breathtakingly gorgeous art is a gift from my dear friend, Pacouro. I've literally been staring at it non-stop for two weeks now. Thanks, love. ❤️

**~**   
  


He was trying, _god damn_ if he wasn’t trying. Yoruichi absolutely would have stepped in and said something too if she’d thought for even a moment that Grimmjow hadn’t fully committed himself to this. Day one of the trials has six candidates on the docket, every last one of them a cadet. He recognizes a few faces, but he doesn’t go out of his way to acknowledge them as students. They’re contenders now, and he has to take them as seriously as they need to take him. For the most part, each one squares off against him with focused intent. He feels safe in assuming that these are the cadets potentially closest to graduation because they do a decent job holding their own against him. He still spends the entire day laying each of them out over and over and over again. The tiny part of him that’s become accustomed to training them wants to correct each mistake they make, and he bites at the inside of his cheek to keep his mouth shut.

Grimmjow tastes blood by the end of the day. Blood and the sweat that slicks his hair to his head. Yoruichi doesn’t even complain about it _once_ when they agree on their usual spot; a platform that winds its way around the outside of the Shatterdome, frequented only by techs who knew it could be a shortcut away from the packed bustle of the inside. He waits for her, legs dangling off the edge, arms on his thighs as he hunched over to watch the sun dip lower. She sidles up silently, collapsing next to him, close enough that their knees touch. They watch the hypnotic push and pull of the ocean for a long while, a dull ache setting into Grimmjow’s muscles from the day’s exertion. Dull, and mild, not at all the way he wants to feel after a day of fighting. His left arm barely hurts for fucks sake. Yoruichi bumps his shoulder and he looks over to the frosted glass bottle that she’s holding.

“They’re well trained, okay?” he reassures her quietly, accepting the bottle of vodka she holds out wordlessly to him. “Not to pull the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ line on ya, but it _is._ All six of them did real good, the gap in our experience is just too much.” He takes a long pull from the bottle, grimacing around the burn as he swallows.

“Book smarts versus street smarts,” she hums as she takes the alcohol back from him, staring moodily out at the ocean as it laps gently against the shore hundreds of feet below them.

“It’s fine. It’s better this way, probably,” he murmurs, eyeing the horizon. He’d been thinking about this all day, a conviction forming the longer he stared at each young face in front of him. Each face with cheeks still made of baby fat and eyes that hadn’t seen the shit that he had. Dr. Unohana had said not to undertake this again out of _duty_. But the notion that he had to protect these children from the horrors of this world, of losing the person they cared most about, felt very much like a duty. “Me over them. They’re so young. And I’m old, I’ve lived a life already.”

“ _You’re twenty-seven._ ” Yoruichi all but cracks the half-empty bottle upside his head. They don’t speak much while they drink, just trade commentary on the cadets, casual, passing shit. The bottle she’d brought with her had already been open, but they’ve put a serious dent in it now. Together, they watch the sun sink below the ocean waves that stretch to the horizon, setting the water on fire in oil spills of burnt orange. Swaths of darkening blue-black inch its way across the sky, stars like loose diamonds strewn on black velvet.

“Did he deny being tested?” Grimmjow asks as the night’s chill begins to set in, creeping in past his sweater, but the warmth of the alcohol in his blood fights it off.

He’s a little buzzed, wouldn’t have had the balls to ask outright otherwise. Yoruichi’s been taking pulls deeper than his, so she’s gotta be farther gone than he is, he thinks. He’s not supposed to ask, he knows this. And if she had a sober braincell left in her head, she’d keep her mouth shut too. But when he glances over at her, takes in her hunched figure, the way her fingers are wrapped tight around the neck of the bottle, her golden eyes downcast, purple hair lying loose against her back, it’s like reading an open book. She knows who he’s talking about, he just knows it. He’d only requested one person like the Marshal had suggested he do.

The depth of her frown and the way she glances sidelong at him for a moment tells Grimmjow everything he needs to know.

**~**

_“The body will always break before the mind,” Fightmaster_ _Baraggan states as he circles the three siblings where they stand side-by-side in the combat room of the Los Angeles Shatterdome, just them and the old man. “It’s why psychological torture makes no difference. It’s also why you are neurologically linked to the Jaeger in the manner that all pilots are. When your body can feel the pain of your Jaeger as though it were happening to you, you will understand why you must be a precise fighter.”_

_“Yes, sir,” the three of them echo in tandem._

_“Your mind knows your body’s limits, and piloting a Jaeger is a taxing ordeal. You must learn to conserve your energy, concentrate your attacks. Be brutal and swift and merciless because your enemy is too.”_

_“Yes, Fightmaster.”_

_And they were all of those things and more. Efficient and ruthless, wielding the super-heated swords of Tres Espadas with commitment and exactness. They were good at it too, fighting monsters by becoming a monster themselves. Teeth bared, savage and deadly. They didn’t even need the drift to know that this was where they belonged, that this was their calling, their purpose._

_“The body will always break before the mind,” the Fightmaster repeats, eyes hard and cold as he studies them with quiet ferocity. “But when the mind goes, that is the end of the line. So, be mindful of each other. Your bond is all that sets you apart from the monsters you fight.”_

**~**

The two of them stagger back through the Shatterdome arm in arm, Grimmjow depositing Yoruichi in her room before making his way down to his own. He latches the door shut and stands in the dimly lit space, feeling a little dizzy with the booze burning in his bloodstream. It blurs the line between him and the ghosts in his head, making him feel empty, like his control is slipping away, sand through his fingers. Messy bed, Tier. Neatly folded clothes, Nel. Shelves of the fridge organized by person, Grimmjow. Somehow, his room is a reflection of occupants that have never even stepped foot in it. All that’s lacking are the photographs, hundreds of them that the three of them would stick to the walls like a poorly designed collage. For as long as they could find disposable cameras and a place that would develop them, they’d been taking them. Hundreds of photographs of Los Angeles and Lima, of beaches and hangar bays, of old friends and mentors. Photographs of their first time in Tres Espadas Conn-pod, taken by one of the techs of course, and more photos of their Jaeger. Photos of them and Marshal Kuchiki, Marshal Shiba, Fightmaster Baraggan. All of the photos rubberbanded together, alone in their own backpack, one of two bags that Grimmjow had brought with him to Tokyo. The backpack full of his old life hangs from a hook on the wall, untouched, collecting dust.

Grimmjow punches out with his right arm and strikes the concrete wall, pain zinging up all the way to his shoulder. He does it again and a third time just for good measure, before letting out a strangled snarl of frustration. His hand is shaking as he draws it away from the wall, head clearing, the knuckles of his middle and ring finger busted and beginning to bleed. He curls his hand into a fist anyway, relishes that flare of sharp pain, the way blood wells up and drips down. It didn’t matter, it didn’t matter, nobody would be able to tell the difference between a self-inflicted injury and Grimmjow maybe having caught a bokken on the back of his knuckles. He uncurls his fingers one by one, stands in stony silence facing the wall as his hand continues to throb. It doesn’t sate the rage that’s roiling in his chest, and he thinks about striking out at the concrete again, until he busts all his knuckles.

He goes quiet and still instead, the way Dr. Unohana has taught him, and takes a couple deep breaths. She’d compared him to a hurricane once. Swirling at top speed, leaving a path of destruction in his wake until he spun himself out. Said it was just part of his particular grieving process, even if the rage had always been inside him, marrow deep. She’d taught him to find stillness in his breath, in the thump of his own heart, to turn inward and level out instead of turning outward to level everything else. So, he does. He counts his breaths, he waits for the anger to abate, and then he staggers into the bathroom to take care of his hand.

**~**

Day two is full of miscellaneous officers of all kinds for candidates, ones that had clear compatibility training and little else. Grimmjow feels a little bad for these ones as he throws them to the mat the whole day. They have jobs they’ll have to get up and do tomorrow, bruised and slightly battered with nothing gained from it. But each one he defeats with ease is another he has to fight and hope they’re compatible. Either there’s a candidate in tomorrow’s line up that’s halfway decent or its over. Maybe they really would scrap Grimmjow and pull two of their near-ready cadets up and push them into a Jaeger together.

Maybe it would be better that way. Grimmjow could continue his life of wandering around like an empty shell, and those two pilots would likely die on their first mission.

He and Yoruichi drink themselves into another stupor after day two, this time in almost painful silence. When he nearly carries her to her room later, she stops him at her door by grabbing his bandaged hand gently. She raises it to eye level as though she’s in any state to inspect it, Midas-gold eyes barely able to focus on it properly. A panicked thrill zings through Grimmjow’s guts as she presses her lips gently to his gauze-wrapped knuckles before returning his arm to his side.

“They’re out there, okay?” she slurs, one hand gripping the door for stability, the other reaching up to ruffle his unstyled hair. “Don’t— don’t do that to yourself. It’s all gonna be okay.”

Grimmjow stares at the top bunk for hours after that, fingers absently tracing the scar on his chest up and down, tracking the edges of it, the spots that still have a little feeling. He wants to believe Yoruichi, so desperately it’s an ache in chest, fishhooks in his heart, pulling this way and that way. Fear, sadness, compounding with loneliness, it was too easy to turn it all into rage, rage as fuel. Fuel to get up in the morning and do this shit all over again like he was going to get a different result. As if Kurosaki was going to show up. As if it was still going to matter when he didn’t.

**~**

There’s one candidate that Grimmjow recognizes, the first one of day three. He’s one of the Neural Bridge Operators in LOCCENT, though Grimmjow has never bothered to ask for or learn his name. He’s ghastly pale with large green eyes and a mop of black hair, tall and reed-thin. It throws Grimmjow for a minute as the guy shucks out his jacket and boots. His job is pretty damn important too, important just like Kurosaki and yet he’s still here, and that thought leaves Grimmjow distracted. The pasty goth manages to gets two points in on him before Grimmjow shuts him out with a barrage of quick attacks. It doesn’t keep him down for long though as he’s always quick to hop back to his feet. Grimmjow likes that, gives the blank-faced fucker a sharp smile as a reward, but green-eyes only blinks blankly back at him.

“He’s the best one yet,” he tells Marshal Kyouraku and Yoruichi when the three of them are alone in the combat room, waiting for the next candidate. He tries to ignore the way Yoruichi’s expression brightens just the slightest bit, the way the slump of the Marshal’s shoulders straightens ever so slightly. The best one yet, and Grimmjow still could read his every movement.

As the day grew later, as Grimmjow outclassed candidate after candidate, he began to lose his temper and therein his control. One of the last opponents he got down to the mat, he twisted his arm fast, too fast. The pop of the guy’s shoulder leaving it’s socket reverberated off the concrete walls of the combat room, his shout of surprise and sudden pain echoing just the same. Grimmjow lets go immediately, not interested in genuinely torturing the poor bastard. Yoruichi is giving him a look that borders on exasperation as she nods her allowance to two of the day’s earlier candidates to help the man.

The rage the prickles at his throat is hard to swallow back down like he’d been doing all day. If that fucker had even half a brain between his ears, he’d have been able to read Grimmjow’s movements. Grimmjow had come at the man at the pace of a goddamn snail, hooking his bokken through the circle of the man’s arms to break his form, spinning to grab ahold of his wrist from behind his back and flipping the guy over and flat down to the mat. Grabbing ahold of his flailing arm and twisting it behind him might have been a touch too much, but it was too late now. It was all too fucking late.

“I can’t fight monsters with _children_ ,” he snarls, gasflame-blue gaze swinging to take in both his superiors. “Physical compatibility isn’t enough. You try to put any one of those kids into a drift with me, and you’re gonna break their fuckin’ brain!”

“They all have Drift Compatibility, Ranger,” Marshal Kyouraku comments blithely, nodding his head in dismissal as the last poor excuse for a candidate bows out of the ring. “But, we anticipated this… being a possible issue.”

“Oh, did you now?” Grimmjow counters waspishly, knows he’s out of line, being disrespectful.

But it seems like he really had been holding out hope somewhere deep down that there’d be at least _one_ candidate capable of going toe-to-toe with him after all. It was crystal clear now that Kurosaki had declined being tested, Yoruichi had all but said it without actually saying it. The Marshal wouldn’t slight Grimmjow like that, by not at least asking. _For the best_ , he thinks savagely to himself. Kurosaki already has a job, is already worth something to this Shatterdome. Kurosaki already knows his place, whereas Grimmjow can’t seem to find his own anymore. At this point, they’d be better off scrapping Grimmjow entirely, forcing him into an early retirement, and putting two fresh pilots in that reconstructed Jaeger. At least two new pilots wouldn’t be bringing with them the even half the level of trauma that Grimmjow alone would bring.

“Our back-up candidate is prepared to test with you,” the Marshal announces, though there’s a bit of a begrudging edge to the way he says it, reluctant.

Grimmjow white-knuckles his bokken and glares daggers at the Marshal. “Then bring ‘em out already. The equally fucked up has-been like me you’ve been saving for last and let’s get this over with too,” Grimmjow finishes snidely.

Grimmjow whips around, rage surging up his spine as he draws the bokken up towards his body, across his left shoulder, and slashes down with the intention of shattering it against the pipes that line the wall. It doesn’t make contact with any pipes though, or even any concrete. It meets the sturdy, slightly-callused palm of the man that Grimmjow had just internally vowed to Spartan kick off his stupid little troll bridge.

Grimmjow really hasn’t had the time to follow up on Kurosaki’s offer to return to the bridge he haunts to try on the weapons prototype glove. The trials have been keeping him sufficiently busy, so this is the first he’s seen the Weapons Specialist. Three days, it’s only been three days, but Kurosaki looks like he hasn’t slept at all since he laid some dad-wisdom on Grimmjow. The circles under his eyes are bruise-dark, making his eyes look like burnished copper in the poor Combat Room lighting. Makes him look sallow, and exhausted, and the look he’s giving Grimmjow is almost exasperated.

“What the fuck, Kurosaki?” Grimmjow hisses, eyes wide as he heaves in a breath. He feels like he’s sucking air through a straw for a moment.

“Ichigo,” the crazy bastard says in answer with a tight smile, gaze flitting briefly over Grimmjow’s shoulder to acknowledge Yoruichi and the Marshal behind him. “If we’re going to do this right, we should probably be properly introduced.”

“ _What_?” Grimmjow says, voice barely above a whisper. “I thought you declined to be tested?”

He looks out of place down here somehow, hair so orange against the yellow-rusted concrete of the combat room walls. In loose, charcoal-grey cargo pants belted tightly around his waist and a black tank top, there’s so much god damn skin on display. And the evidence is all right there. The scars that mar his arms in a twisted network of silvery, puckered skin, the slash through his left eye. And right there below his throat, exposed by the low neck of his tank top, is a roundish, divoted scar the size of a fist, gnarled and starkly pink against his tanned skin. It hits Grimmjow then, way, _way_ too late on all accounts, why the name Kurosaki has always sounded so familiar to him. Hits him like a weird montage of old news reports, a shuffling flash of two victorious pilots standing beside their Jaeger. Old news coverage of two pilots always in their Drivesuits with their helmets on, obscuring what was the most notable and ridiculous head of hair.

 _Kurosaki_ , _Ichigo_ _Kurosaki_ , as in Ichigo and Shiro Kurosaki, the twin brothers who piloted the first and last experimental Mark IV Jaeger, Tensa Zangetsu. The menacingly awesome, all-black Jaeger kitted out with an array of Kisuke Urahara’s most mad-scientist weapons. The Jaeger with the most confirmed Kaiju kills of any Jaeger ever built, _eleven_. And there’s one half of the dream, Kaiju-killing team standing in front of him looking awkward and exhausted and put-out and Grimmjow lets out half a hysterical sort of wheezing laugh before he can stop himself. He’s a Ranger too; he’s used to the rock star treatment, used to the hero worship when people recognize him, which isn’t difficult considering he’s the only Jaeger pilot with blue fucking hair. He had respect for anyone else that did what he did because the job was a nightmare and a dream all in one. But Ichigo and Shiro Kurosaki were— shit, they were like _god_ tier Jaeger pilots, the elite, the I’ll-tell-my-grandkids-this-story-everyday-until-they-think-I’m-senile if you ever got to drop with them and lived. If Grimmjow had been a couple years younger and not already a Ranger himself when they were in their heyday, he probably would have had a poster of the two of them on his bedroom wall. _Not_ that he would admit that to anyone.

Grimmjow’s grand epiphany must be written all over his stupid face because _Ichigo Kurosaki’s_ shoulders slump even more than usual. “In the beginning, I genuinely thought you knew and just didn’t care,” Kurosaki says, chest expanding sharply as he sucks in a deep breath before letting it all out in a rush. “But when you asked me who I’d lost, I realized you didn’t know, and it was… _nice._ It was kind of refreshing to be honest.”

 _Who I’d lost._ Grimmjow rocks back on his bare heels, still holding one end of the bokken, Kurosaki holding the other. He’s back in the hallway outside the LOCCENT control room, fending off a panic attack. Grievously injured. Killed a Kaiju by himself. Solo-piloted his Jaeger back to shore with his dead pilot, his _dead twin brother,_ still connected. Kurosaki, _his_ Kurosaki —not his, where the fuck did that thought come from?— snarky, brilliant, unassuming, Weapons Specialist Kurosaki.

“You’re the other has-been pilot?” Grimmjow asks, incredulity plain in his face, in his voice, in every line of his body. Kurosaki’s face screws up in a furious grimace and he moves faster than Grimmjow can track for a moment, wrist twisting, pushing the bokken up, and clocking Grimmjow in the nose with it. “Ow, motherfucker!” He reaches up with his free hand and grips his nose, checks quickly to make sure it doesn’t come away wet with blood. It’s aching and tingling, the way his nose always does when it gets smashed, and he can’t tell if he’s about to sneeze or not.

“Who’re you calling a has-been, _has-been_?” Kurosaki’s eyes blaze with momentary but righteous fury.

It’s like a trapdoor dropping open in Grimmjow’s throat, heat and terror and exhilaration rushing through his chest and weaving through his guts. That’s— he hadn’t seen that coming _at all._ Kurosaki is watching him carefully, like he’s waiting for Grimmjow to detonate internally or some shit, that infuriating smirk a small uptick in the corner of his mouth. Grimmjow doesn’t stop his gaze from wandering shamelessly, down the scar that mars the otherwise flawless skin of Kurosaki’s face, the ones that twine his arms, the one that lies like a void beneath the hollow of his throat. All from his Jaeger, from that last mission probably. It feels a bit like a chokehold, the hard to swallow feeling in Grimmjow’s throat as he thinks about Kurosaki’s brother, which makes him think about his own sisters.

_We’re the same._

“You _flirted_ with me,” Grimmjow’s points out bluntly, finding his voice, still holding onto one end of the bokken, Kurosaki the other.

To his credit, Kurosaki barely even flusters at the call-out. “I thought you’d have a copilot by now and you’d all but disappear. How the hell was I supposed to know that you’d blow through twenty-three candidates like this was cheap speed dating?”

“ _You flirted with me,”_ he repeats, because it’s been in the back of his mind for the past three days. The way Kurosaki’s lips had curled around the word _maybe_ , filthy really. Or maybe Grimmjow was just remembering it the way he wanted to. But this was barely the same Kurosaki anymore, not in lieu of everything Grimmjow knew now.

“Do you own a mirror, asshole?”

“Can I count that as one point to zero?” Yoruichi’s voice calls from across the room, ratcheting Grimmjow’s shoulders up to his ears. He’d all but forgotten where he was and that he wasn’t alone with Kurosaki. He whirls around to glare at her with all the venom he can muster, feeling weirdly, viscerally betrayed. Oh, they were going to have some fuckin’ _words_ later. “I see that you two are already acquainted.”

Red flashes into his vision and Grimmjow takes a bold step towards his closest friend who’s grinning like the cat that got the cream. But Kurosaki pulls at the bokken they’re both still holding onto to reel Grimmjow back. Marshal Kyouraku is also sporting a mildly amused smile, though there’s something tight around his last good eye, something unreadable there. Grimmjow is usually very good at reading people, but there’s always been something about the Marshal that’s hard to parse for Grimmjow. All he remembers is that the Marshal was hesitant to put Kurosaki’s name forward when he’d mentioned it, this had to be why. Without even knowing, Grimmjow had recommended the only other inactive pilot in the entire Shatterdome that wasn’t the Marshal himself. Maybe he was trying to protect Kurosaki for some reason, keeping him as a backup.

“Full contact will be allowed, gentlemen. Be mindful,” Marshal Kyouraku calls across the space, reaching up to pluck at the kimono draped over his shoulders like a blanket. “Begin when you’re ready.”

“C’mon, I’ll make it worth your while,” Kurosaki says, a borderline dangerous look in his hooded eyes when Grimmjow turns back around to look at him. He lets go of the bokken to go retrieve his own from the stack propped neatly against the wall. Grimmjow watches him go, watches the way he treads across the room, all legs and silent footsteps, before coming back to the mat, looking expectantly at Grimmjow.

Grimmjow would never tell anyone under anything less than torture that a tremor goes through his hand then and he clenches it around his bokken to get it to stop. The flare of pain from his still-healing knuckles is what propels him forward. Kurosaki settles low into his hips, soft knees, not a stance Grimmjow would ever take, teach, or recommend to anyone. He lowers his chin and stares at Grimmjow through thick lashes, eyes looking almost golden in the overhead lights of the combat room, as he holds the bokken out behind him with one hand. He’s smirking again, confidence practically oozing out of him. He looks like an entirely different fucking person, and an undeniable and complicated thrill shoots through Grimmjow like an electrical charge.

He wiggles his fingers to loosen his grip on his own bokken that he’s rested over his shoulder, nerves alight with anticipation. Kurosaki doesn’t hesitate, bringing his bokken forward and sweeping down at Grimmjow who blocks with ease. Those soft knees lock, bare feet twisting on the mat to position himself as he bores down on Grimmjow, testing his strength. So, Grimmjow lets him, forces himself not to stare at the flex of Kurosaki’s biceps, and gives a little as a false sense of security before he drops down to the floor, catching himself with a flat palm and kicking Kurosaki’s legs out from under him. Kurosaki’s back hits the mat, the air rushing out of him with an audible whoosh and Grimmjow takes the few seconds as he hops lithely back onto his feet to put a step of space between them.

“One point to zero,” comes Yoruichi’s voice from the dais.

Grimmjow can’t stop fuckin’ grinning from ear to ear as he lunges at Kurosaki again, testing angles and reflexes one by one, Kurosaki blocking him each time but once. He’s gets the dull tip of his bokken pressed to Kurosaki’s chest, just at the curve where his diaphragm would be under his shirt, and Kurosaki’s gaze blisters like acid as they separate. Grimmjow’s blood is all but singing in his veins, a symphonic crescendo of something so close to holy it has goosebumps breaking out on his exposed arms.

“Two points to zero.”

“C’mon, Kurosaki,” he goads, circling him, holding his wooden sword lazily. “You said you were gonna make this worth my while. You’re starting to bore me.”

“Bore you? I’ll spice it up a little then.” And he whirls around faster than Grimmjow’s eyes can accurately track, bokken arcing out and slicing its way across his chest. It leaves a weird crease across the front of his shirt and an angry red line from one side to another on his skin beneath, stinging as it welts up red, bringing blood just to the surface. And fuckin’ _hell_ if that ain’t gonna bruise like a bitch. He presses a hand absently to his chest, relishes the bright flare of pain for a moment.

“Two points to one.”

He lashes out again, intent on getting Kurosaki in the side, misses just barely as the quick bastard drops into a roll and dodges. Grimmjow swings out and Kurosaki ducks low, manages to snake his way up into Grimmjow’s defense and get his bokken against Grimmjow’s ribs on one side. Kurosaki’s expression is stoic, carefully blank, as they step apart to reset, but his _eyes_. His eyes are _alive_ , there’s an almost ferocious sort of glee in them that Grimmjow is all too familiar with.

“Two points to two.”

Contact will be allowed, the Marshal had said, but he’d neglected to specify if any particular _type_ of contact wouldn’t be, and who was Grimmjow not to take advantage of such an oversight. So, he drops out of the way of Kurosaki’s controlled swing, turns, curls his left hand into a tight fist, and sucker punches Kurosaki right in the abdomen. The strangled groan that rasps out of him lights Grimmjow’s every last nerve on fire. His knuckles throb in beat with his heart as he pulls away, shaking his hand out a little from punching what essentially felt like concrete.

“Three points to two.”

The look Kurosaki levels him as they separate again is sinful in Grimmjow’s book as he presses a hand to his abdomen to repress the pain. He says nothing though, as if he also knows that the Marshal’s oversight makes what just happened perfectly allowable. He’s quick to get Grimmjow right back a minute or two later, clipping him in the jaw with the butt end of his bokken. Grimmjow ends up cutting his bottom lip on his own teeth and a bloom of copper hits his tongue as the skin splits. He raises his free hand to his mouth to swipe away at it, probably smearing it across his scarred cheek in the process. Kurosaki doesn’t even fuckin’ blink as he watches with hooded eyes and blown pupils.

“Three points to three.”

It all ends with the mostly dull tip of Kurosaki’s bokken nestled under Grimmjow’s chin, tilting his head back slightly, baring the entire column of his throat. Both of them are panting, Grimmjow staring down his nose and the length of Kurosaki’s wooden sword into eyes that burn like a forest fire. Those spitfire eyes wander briefly down to the pulse jumping in Grimmjow’s throat, the way the sword he holds dents the pale skin there where it’s pressed. Head spinning, heart thrashing like a caged animal in his chest, Grimmjow grins at him, it’s barely a grin though, bears all his teeth in what could only be described as savage satisfaction, blood trailing slowly down his chin.

Tier and Nel used to say he fought like he wasn’t expecting to get back up if he went down hard. That Grimmjow wouldn’t know a good thing even if it came up and slit his throat. But this was it. This was him.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life has been fuckin' wild but I wanted to get at least something up for Grimmjow's birthday, lmao. Thanks for all of your kickass comments, they've kept me motivated through all this life shit.

**~**

Kurosaki doesn’t exactly leave him high and dry, but he definitely hightails it out of the combat room the precise minute that the Marshal and Yoruichi release them. Grimmjow knows Marshal Kyouraku is saying something about making his final decision, that Grimmjow should report to the LOCCENT conference room in the morning to hear said decision. He is in the shallowest of bows, just low enough to be properly respectful, and by the time he straightens up, Kurosaki is gone. His blood pressure is up so high he swears he can feel it in his temples, thumping wild and heavy. There’s blood dried on his chin, all iron on his tongue, and he whirls around to face the mouth of the combat room and it’s empty. He doesn’t really think, only _feels,_ feels the line already bruising across his chest and the dull tip of a wooden sword like it’s still at his throat, as he lurches forward into a jog. Grimmjow manages to not absolutely eat shit on the concrete floor with bare feet as he makes it around the corner to the stretch of empty hallway that ends in the main elevator.

And turning around in said elevator, hand reaching out blindly to smack at a button, is Kurosaki.

Grimmjow breaks into a dead sprint, body somehow finding a reserve of energy to do so. He’s spent, utterly drained after three days of this shit, every last bit of him going into that fight that just ended. And there’s his prey, slinking away like they have _nothing_ to talk about now, like there isn’t— Even all legs like he is, the distance is too much for even Grimmjow’s stride to eat up in time. Kurosaki doesn’t move, doesn’t so much as flinch at Grimmjow’s approach, and Grimmjow stops short just in time not to get clipped by the doors.

They stare at each other, Grimmjow’s chest heaving as he sucks in sharp breaths, the betrayal probably etched in every sharp line of his face as metal divides them. The doors slide closed on the image of Kurosaki with his chin nearly tucked to his chest, looking up through his lashes, his haunting eyes all golden in the lift light, the scar that bisects his left eye all silvery, precious metal, fixed on Grimmjow. And then he’s gone, the metal groaning and the motors whirring as the steel box rises unseen.

He has no way of knowing what level Kurosaki is getting off on, where he’s even headed. So, Grimmjow slinks back into the now empty combat room to retrieve his boots and his shirt, yanking both on in a hurry. It feels like some kind of eternal punishment as he waits for the elevator doors to swing open again and he punches the unlit button for the level closest to Kurosaki’s usual hanging bridge. _Absolutely not_ , he thinks with a surge of vehemence to rival the adrenalin high he still hasn’t come down from. No fucking way is going to let Kurosaki run after _that_ fight.

~

The sound of his heavy booted footsteps causes the head hanging over the organized desk beside the Frankenstein Jaeger to jerk up, only it’s not Kurosaki’s head. Rukia Kuchiki’s large, violet eyes appraise him and she reaches up to tuck a wayward lock of her dark hair behind her ear. She’s alone, Abarai is nowhere in sight, but neither is Kurosaki. But that’s _Kurosaki’s desk_ , so why is she sitting there and where is he if not here? They stare at each other for a few seconds, both of them equally baffled to be seeing the other, like they’ve both been caught red-handed somehow.

A spiraling moment of dizzying disbelief washes over Grimmjow as he stares at Rukia, a realization like a sucker punch hitting him. He doesn’t know _anything_ about Kurosaki, not a damn thing. Didn’t even know his first fuckin’ name until an hour ago, had never even bothered to _ask_. Other than this bridge and his position as a Weapons Specialist, Grimmjow doesn’t know Ichigo Kurosaki at all. Doesn’t know where he’d be if not here next to the Frankenstein Jaeger, doesn’t know what level his room is on, where he goes when he wants to be alone. He doesn’t know much of anything about Kurosaki’s family —the ones that are still alive— about his hobbies, or his favorite foods, or what he does when he’s not _right fuckin’ here._

But Grimmjow knows they’re drift compatible. _He knows._ And Kurosaki knows it too, because Grimmjow will eat his own fucking hand if Kurosaki tells him he didn’t _feel_ it too.

Rukia is staring at him, studying him with her sharp, flitting gaze, observing the hummingbird thrum of his pulse in his neck, the near-manic look that’s probably in his eyes, the blood still absolutely smeared on his chin. She sits up in the chair, fingers clicking the screen of her tablet lying on the desk to off. She’s got her bomber jacket on, the three patterned snowflakes across her heart signifying White Haze’s kills. And sitting in front of the hulking mass of the under-construction Jaeger, she looks microscopic.

“Figured as much,” she says with a heavy sigh, tone icier than the coolant vents in White Haze’s metal palms. If Grimmjow wasn’t already acquainted with her, he’d think she was pissed, but he knows Rukia alright enough to be sure this is just the way she is.

“What the hell does that mean, Kuchiki?” he demands, feeling out of breath. He’s been out of breath since Kurosaki put that dull wooden sword to his throat. Too exhausted and simultaneously wired to be even act remotely sociable now.

“Ichigo is an old friend,” she says, a little gentler this time, as though that’s the clarification he asked for. In fact, all of her gentles as she continues to stare at Grimmjow, her shoulders and her gaze. She smiles but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Just… give him some time to breathe. Ichigo’s never run from a fight in his life, and he definitely won’t run from _you_ ,” she mutters fondly with a dramatic roll of her eyes.

Grimmjow just kind of gawps at her, searching for words and coming up empty, throat dry, tongue feeling like it’s too big for his mouth, body beginning to tingle and ache all over as his adrenalin dissipates, letting the exhaustion bleed through. Kuchiki knows Kurosaki. _Old friend._ It’s hard to tamp down the flood of questions that spring up like a tapped well in his chest. All the things she must know about Kurosaki… Just how many years is _old_? Did she know Kurosaki’s brother? Did they go through the Jaeger Program together? Or older even? Childhood friends, schoolmates? _The things she must know._ All the things Grimmjow doesn’t.

The well gets frozen over by the presence of the Ice Queen herself and Grimmjow’s own willpower to rein his shit in. “He already ran,” Grimmjow states, voice coming out crueler than he means, his escalating disbelief over _everything_ in the last hour compounding steadily. There’s a shard of something dangerously cold forming in his chest, sharp and distressing. It feels almost like the hysterical start of a panic attack, shallow breaths and all, only he’s too focused on Rukia to be drifting fully from the moment.

Rukia heaves another sigh again as if Grimmjow is a small child struggling to understand the very simple concept she’s trying to explain. “We knew this would happen. There was bound to be somebody else, and you’re equally as screwed up. And he hasn’t _shut up_ about you yet…”

She’s rambling at a mile a minute, and Grimmjow is taking the words in, but they’re not quite processing right. So, it’s just him, standing there, staring, sweat-soaked blue hair falling in his face and stuck to his neck and temples, blood on his chin and probably his shirt, looking like the hot fucking mess of the century. _We,_ the royal _we_ , Grimmjow is sure. Referring to Abarai more than likely. Which means Abarai and Kuchiki _talk_ about Kurosaki when he’s not around, which means they know him well enough to feel comfortable doing so. Which also means Kurosaki has informed them of the entire situation of getting asked to test to be reactivated. Maybe they’re all _old_ friends. And under the duress of his own exhaustion, it takes a solid minute or so for Rukia’s last statement to click in Grimmjow’s brain.

_Kurosaki talks about him._

“Just—” she cuts herself off and gives Grimmjow a stern look, a spitfire gaze that wildly reminds him of Kurosaki for a moment. “Give him the night, Jaegerjaquez, trust me.”

**~**

He’s staring at the tiles of the shower wall later, fixated, as searing hot water beats down on his head and shoulders. His chest stings where the water runs over the abrasion that marks him straight across, his knuckles too where they are still healing. The grout is in desperate need of cleaning, he thinks absently, anything to distract him from the maelstrom he is within. Even as he reaches up to grip at his left shoulder, squeezing at the muscle and the joint.

 _Now_ his shoulder aches, properly, the way it should after a damn good fight. Strange, he hums to himself under the water as he tips his head back into it, lets the downpour shift all his hair out of his eyes. Grimmjow has always associated a good fight with the way his body aches afterwards. But he’s only had the bum left arm for a year, _just a year._ When did he start using that as a barometer instead of the rest of his body? And why does that fact bother him?

Maybe because it’s another stake in the heart, another wedge driven between him and his old life. Another difference between who he was then and who he is now. Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez didn’t have a busted shoulder or a broken body when his sisters were around. And now his sisters are gone, and he might as well be the cobbled remains of who he used to be. The leftovers, the scraps, held together by some split thickness skin grafts and a fuck ton of therapy. Tenuous at best. A bandaid slapped over the stump of a severed limb.

Grimmjow dreams of the Lima Shatterdome that night, of the white sand beaches, of the way the sun sinks to the horizon’s edge, turning the sky a blood red and the water a burnt orange. He dreams of piloting Tres Espadas, of his sister’s bantering to his right, of the gentle lull of the drift. Of the way drifting felt, like lying belly up in the sand and letting the waves lap over you gently. Peaceful, quiet, soporific. He dreams of Tier and Nel’s presence, of clementines and coconut body lotion and hot steel, of sentry strength and unwavering devotion.

He dreams of hazel-gold eyes watching over his shoulder like a specter as he drifts, stuck to him like his shadow. Watching from somewhere within an empty hangar bay that echoes with the voices of a Gaelic lullaby. Watching from the distance as he drops a kiss to the top of each fresh headstone in a verdant field so far away from where he is now. And when Grimmjow wakes, his whole chest aches like someone has cracked his sternum apart and scrambled his insides with a vengeance.

**~**

“Are we gonna talk about it?” Yoruichi demands the very _second_ that Grimmjow pulls his door open the next morning. He all but slams it in her face, but she’s faster than his sleep-deprived mind can fire off the command to cut her off, and she slithers into his room before he gets the door properly shut. “Because, _oh man_ do I wanna talk about it.”

“No, we are absolutely not going to fucking talk about it,” Grimmjow hisses, reaching up to scrub both hands up his face, over the stubble on his jaw, grinding the heels of palms into his eyes, smoothing his hair down. He’d intended to slip down to the refectory for a cup of coffee and come back _without_ interacting with anyone. Had even put a sweatshirt with a hood on for shit’s sake, all so he could avoid people. He should have known better, should have known that Yoruichi was just waiting to ambush him.

“You requested him, _didn’t you know?_ ” Yoruichi’s tone is incredulous and damn near sounds like she’s questioning his sanity. Which, maybe he’d have at least some sanity left if Kurosaki hadn’t cheesed it out of the combat room like a coward and Grimmjow hadn’t spent the entire night dreaming about that spar. 

“What about ‘absolutely fucking not’ was not clear?” he hisses out, hand still clutching the latch of his door tightly, knuckles white under his skin. They ache from gripping a bokken for three days straight, every last one of them. His knees too, duller, his left shoulder is one, continuous throb. Old, worn out meat and bones.

“ _Grimmjow._ ”

He hears the squeak of metal and knows she’s already hopped up onto the empty top bunk, settled in. Grimmjow heaves out a sigh that damn near comes from his marrow, and twists his wrist to latch the door locked again. He’s supposed to be in the LOCCENT conference room in a little less than an hour to receive the Marshal’s decision for his new copilot. But he knows, they all know. He won’t accept anything less now. Grimmjow wonders if it will be just him and the Marshall, or if Kurosaki will be there too, crawling out of whatever metalwork he’d scuttled away to hide in.

Grimmjow collapses onto his own, unmade bunk and tries not to let show the traitorous half-smile as Yoruichi swings round to lie on her stomach and hang over the edge, staring down at him, purple bangs framing her curious eyes. She’s silent, waiting in her surprisingly patient way. It was that very look that had Grimmjow take a blood oath almost eight months ago that he’d never play another fucking game of chess with her again. Yoruichi Shihouin could stare down and wait out a hurricane and probably win. So, he stares up, but not at her directly, just at the little curl of her bangs on one side.

“I didn’t know,” he sighs after a moment, the words feeling like the admission of some terrible sin in a confessional.

“Seriously?” Still incredulous, she even shimmies a little, moving until more of her body is hanging off one edge than the other, just her calves and booted feet sticking out the other side. Two whipcord-strong arms come dangling down, swatting at his knees as he rolls his eyes.

“Seriously,” he repeats. Grimmjow is still buzzing from Kurosaki, blood like the fizz of carbonation in his veins, skin tingling all over like pins and needles. From Kurosaki and the things Rukia Kuchiki had unwittingly admitted to knowing last night. Speaking of— “But _you._ Did you fuckin’ know he used to be a pilot?”

Grimmjow finally forces his eyes to focus on her completely and the face Yoruichi makes screams guilty. He sits up on his elbows in a rush and glares absolute death up at her, even goes so far as to reach and grab ahold of a lock of her hair and yank it hard enough for her to squeal.

“ _You_ _bitch_ ,” he hisses venomously, a strange twinge of betrayal ringing in his chest.

Yoruichi is patting at her scalp like Grimmjow ripped an entire chunk out, looking down at him with an apology on her lips and disbelief in her eyes. “You never mentioned him to me! I only found out that you even knew Ichigo when the Marshal told me you requested him. How the hell did you two even meet?”

“Nope,” Grimmjow says petulantly, trying to take another swipe at her, but she flexes up to avoid him, so he reaches out to try and pull her bootlaces. “Two can play this game. See if you ever get a scrap of information out of me again. No more favors either, you traitorous shitbag. No amount of strawberry candy is gonna—”

“Grimmy—” she whines, at the same pitch and with the same nickname that Nel always used, and the pang it causes in his chest is a mix, more nostalgia than pain. It almost makes him want to laugh: therapy was fucking wild. “I would have told you if I could!” she exclaims, arms like skinny, flailing octopus tentacles as they grope down at him. Grimmjow slides down his sheets and flattens his back to his bed, completely out of her reach unless she climbs down.

“Same song, different day, I see,” he hums waspishly, knowing it’ll make her mad, and watches her flail. Dangerous hazel eyes stare down like a predator from above and Grimmjow flashes her his meanest, most insincere smile, all teeth and no dimples.

It doesn’t work like it usually does, doesn’t drive her to come sliding off the top bunk to tackle him, to drive her knife-like elbows into the meat of his thighs until he wants to cry. She’s staring again, somber and watchful. “He never once mentioned knowing you during any part of the compatibility testing. It really never came up?” she presses a moment later, softer, more serious.

Grimmjow exhales out his nose sharply and turns his head on his pillow to stare at the latch of his door, almost wishing for the elbow torture instead of the emotional torture. “He ain’t my therapist, Yoru. Already got one of those. He’s just a—”

What the fuck even _is_ Kurosaki now? They don’t know each other well enough for Grimmjow to call him a friend, at least he doesn’t think so. He doesn’t know Kurosaki the way he knows Yoruichi, the way Rukia seems to know Kurosaki. The fuck are you supposed to a call an absurdly attractive, smart as fuck asshole who admitted he went out of his way to flirt with you when he thought it would be the last time you two ever spoke, who you were 95% sure you were drift compatible with? _Friend_ seems lackluster somehow, in the wake of all that backstory that had piled up wickedly fast, but there still isn’t enough there for Grimmjow to feel like he’s earned that. That someone wouldn’t do a double-take if he called Kurosaki a friend in passing. He can count on one hand with fingers to spare the shit he actually knows about the guy.

Yoruichi seems to sense the internal detonation she’s just set off and sidesteps Grimmjow’s poor emotional coping skills like the minefield it is. “What did he say?”

“Nothing, he bolted, you were there.” There and watching the whole thing, every careful footstep, every practiced swing.

Yoruichi had seen _everything._ Had probably seen the literal glee on Grimmjow’s face, the dawning comprehension that, after three whole days, he’d finally found someone who could not only hold their own against him, but edge him out. She’d seen Kurosaki, and his mask-like expression, the one that would crack a little every few seconds, a similar sort of feral excitement seeping out of him. The joy of their fight that he couldn’t keep out of his glittering eyes like he’d tried to with his face.

“You didn’t go after him?”

“I tried to,” Grimmjow admits, and this admission feels weightier than saying he hadn’t known who Kurosaki was until yesterday.

Yoruichi knew him inside and out, knew all the terrible and wonderful things that made him tick. Knew how he hated to lose with a vengeance, could hold a grudge and whittle it down into a vendetta sharp enough to kill. Admitting he’d gone after Kurosaki and given up when he couldn’t find him was like a violation of his own honor code. Rukia, she’d told Grimmjow to give Kurosaki the night, whatever that had meant. Grimmjow had lapped the Shatterdome in full before having to stop in a lower level hallway and put his forehead against the cold concrete of a wall so he didn’t lose his shit. He’d reluctantly given up after that, retreated to his room to wash his wounds and stew in all the emotions ready to boil over in his chest.

“Couldn’t find him,” he finishes quietly, studying the metal door across the room like it’s the most interesting thing in the universe as Yoruichi gazes down at him. That same thready sort of fluttering in his chest has started up again. Anxiety, he thinks, nothing good that’s for sure.

“Well, today’s a new day,” she murmurs gently, reassuringly, and Grimmjow sits bolt upright at that, nearly banging his forehead against the metal frame above him.

Today _is_ a new day, and considering Grimmjow is the only pilot they had truly intended to reactivate back to duty, Kurosaki is likely treating this like any other day until he’s told otherwise. Kurosaki has a post to report to, a job to do, and today could be no different until his commanding officer told him it was. And that meeting isn’t for another half hour.

“I need to go,” Grimmjow says in a rush, swinging his feet back to the floor and standing up so fast that he gets a little dizzy with headrush from the change in momentum.

“See you at the meeting?” Yoruichi calls after him as he wrenches his door open. He doesn’t bother to turn to look at her and doesn’t see her fond smile following him down the steps before the door clangs against the frame.

**~**

Kurosaki is there this time, sitting in his chair, booted feet crossed at the ankles atop his desk, head of ridiculous orange hair craned back to stare at the under-construction Jaeger. Something black is waggling about in his mouth as he chomps at it and Grimmjow has to creep closer to see that it’s the stylus to his tablet lying on the desk, screen black. He’s got his arms crossed over his chest, his usual white t-shirt with his coveralls tied at his waist. There’s a black hoodie draped over the back of the chair and something in Grimmjow’s chest lurches a little at the sight of it. _That hoodie…_

Stuck in his own head, totally distracted, he doesn’t even react to Grimmjow’s approach though he usually would have spotted him halfway across the bridge by now. He’s fixated on the Jaeger, at the couple of techs suspended a few stories above, nothing but dark spots against the unpainted metal of the mech, blurred out by a shower of welding sparks. Grimmjow has never been able to sneak up on Kurosaki, not even when he’d caught sight of him up here for the first time all those weeks ago.

His heart is an exhilarating thump in his chest, heavy and anxious, feels like a panther pressed belly down in the tall grass as he stalks forward.

“Kurosaki,” he says plainly, no anger, no bitterness, no unease, nothing he’s been feeling since yesterday afternoon. 

Broad shoulders ratchet up like a startled cat and Kurosaki sits up straight, boots sliding off his desk, whipping around in his chair to look at Grimmjow. He looks no less small than Rukia did in the hulking shadow of the Jaeger, just brighter. Orange hair and ochre eyes wide as saucers, whites bloodshot, smears of bruise-purple under his eyes. He could be a watercolor painting, a wash of warm colors, like one of the idyllic scenes that hang on Dr. Unohana’s walls.

“Grimmjow?”

Grimmjow hadn’t exactly thought about what he wanted to say, the things he wanted to ask, on the way here. From the steps of his bedroom to the metal grate of the hanging bridge beneath his boots, from there to here is an absolute blur. He’s staring at Kurosaki again, like he had in the combat room yesterday. Staring in the kind of way that would have made him snap at someone if the roles were reversed. But it’s hard not to. Hard not to stare at that absolutely fucking ludicrous hair, it’s artful disarray of messy spikes, the rail of his collarbones under warm skin, the barest glimpse of the puckered edge of the scar on his chest. Sharp chin, thin lips, straight nose, furrowed brows, the scar like a silver tear dripping down his left cheek. Grimmjow is almost _afraid_ to meet his eyes.

All the _pain_ that has to be entombed in those bones, beneath all the toned muscle and scarred skin. The agony of losing your soulmate, of having a connection indescribable to anyone, even to someone who has experienced it, be severed irrevocably.

_Please, please. You might be the only one who understands._

His gut twists sharply, and for a second Grimmjow thinks he’s gonna vomit. He licks his lips, tongue like sandpaper in his mouth as he finally gets his throat to work.

“You were never going to tell me,” Grimmjow says, means it like a question, only it comes out sounding like a statement. A fact.

The look Kurosaki swings him, all narrowed eyes of honey-brown accented by his trademark scowl and strong jaw, hits Grimmjow a little differently than every time before. As does the image of scarred arms as he snatches his black hoodie off the back of his chair and slides them into the sleeves. Thin, silvery, a network of pain and trauma and agony making a puzzle out of him. _Ichigo Kurosaki._

Fuck, Grimmjow could barely understand much less grab a hold of a single one of the emotions running through him at lightspeed.

How many times had he watched that video over the years, Tensa Zangetsu’s tenth Kaiju kill, their last Kaiju kill with _both_ pilots? Watched the grace with which the Jaeger’s black arm glinting in the light of the helicopter’s overhead had swung that superheated chain around the Kaiju’s neck, getting behind it, and pulling until the alien head had separated from ginormous shoulders, cauterizing everything as it cleaved through skin, flesh, nerves, and bone. The image of that Kaiju head as it hit the churning black water of the ocean, bioluminescently blue tongue lolling out of its mouth, severed tendons and strange veins spurting small fountains of glowing blue as it sunk below the waves. Grisly and brutal and efficient as all hell. He’d never seen anyone kill a Kaiju like that before.

“Should I have?” Kurosaki’s tone is light, one corner of his mouth pulling up a little, out of his normal scowl. Simple, friendly, back to the easy push and pull of their _whatever_. Like nothing had happened. Like nothing had changed, even though it felt like everything had changed.

Grimmjow wants to punch him. Wants to tackle him to the bridge and wail on the cheeky fucker. Instead, he reaches up to push his hood off and just shouts nonsensically: “You just— let me be an asshole!”

“Are you going to stop being an asshole now just because you know?” Grimmjow is silent, speechless, and Kurosaki looks smug as shit, scowl totally gone now. “Good. Besides, how in the hell would I have brought that up in casual conversation?”

“You just fuckin’ say it,” Grimmjow blurts without really thinking, brain still hung up on Kurosaki’s indifference, on the fact that he said it was a _good_ thing that Grimmjow was going to keep being a jerk.

“That’s insensitive,” Kurosaki insists with a delicate shake of his head and an expression that screams faux-outrage. Grimmjow takes a threatening step forward until he’s at the edge of the desk, the urge to throttle the kid surging up again, and Kurosaki watches him, smile growing even wider.

“The hell it is! It’s _insensitive_ to not correct someone who’s misinformed.” A downpour of sparks draws Grimmjow’s attention briefly and he glances up to see the panel of the Jaeger’s chest that J-tech is welding together up above. 

“There’s not that many of us, how come you _didn’t_ know?” Kurosaki presses and Grimmjow gapes at him a little as he shrugs nonchalantly despite the shit-eating grin on his face. It’s no different. Kurosaki had been the same three days ago on the morning Grimmjow had stopped by before the beginning of the trials. He’d known then already that Grimmjow had requested him, he’d already been through the exams, and still he’d treated Grimmjow the same as he’s treating him now. _Like a friend._ “It’s not my fault you’re stupid.”

“Hey!” Grimmjow protests, but there’s warmth melting the cold shard that had lodged itself in his chest yesterday when he’d been standing right here talking to Rukia Kuchiki. “But you— you knew me?”

Kurosaki’s expression, all twisted smug satisfaction and something almost _delighted_ , calls him stupid again in six different ways, all of them nonverbal. “Of course I know who you are.”

And, oh, there’s that heat again, like fire down the gullet, trailing through his chest and down into his gut. The way Kurosaki had said _maybe,_ his smug smile when he’d shut Grimmjow down for calling him a cadet, the look in his eyes when he’d got his first point on Grimmjow yesterday. But the black hoodie is nagging at him, pulling him back to the corridor, to that conversation, to those first words they exchanged. He needs to know, the whole truth, all the cards on the table.

“The argument, the one you settled by laying that cadet out…” Grimmjow starts, swallowing thickly as he remembers, visualizes. Blood red smeared across tan skin and perfect, white teeth like a mouthful of ivory piano keys, and fire orange hair, eyes like molten metal. “What was it about?”

Kurosaki doesn’t speak for a few minutes, gaze sliding back to stare up at the Jaeger, the sparks of the welders like shooting stars in his eyes. Grimmjow can’t look away, not for anything. “He said any Jaeger pilot that dies during a mission obviously wasn’t worthy to pilot a Jaeger in the first place. So, I punched him. A couple of times.”

In the back of his head, in that very moment, Grimmjow swears he can hear Tier’s laugh and her voice like an echo bouncing around the confines of his skull. _This kid is a forest fire and you want so badly to get burned._

“Let’s go,” Grimmjow says, whole body fizzing again, needing to move before he does something that will make him deserve when he gets called stupid again. He does feel like he’s burning, like there's lightning in his veins.

“What?” Kurosaki’s gaze flies back to him, down to his hand as he raps his knuckles against the wood, and back up, surprise etched in every line of his face. As if he doesn’t know.

“I said let’s go. We’re already late for our meeting with the Marshal.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are always appreciated!! Thank you for your patience and for reading the story so far!
> 
> Please enjoy the pain 😈

  
  
~

The static tension between them as they ride the elevator up to the level of LOCCENT is enough to defibrillate someone. Kurosaki fidgets and Grimmjow stands as still as humanly possible, trying to ignore how he can feel Kurosaki glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. It’s stupid, so stupid, the way he feels like bottled lightning, Kurosaki an approaching storm. Both of their relief is palpable as the metal doors heave open and they step out. The hallway is blessedly empty, no eyes to watch them as they enter a quiet, practically desolate command center.

Kurosaki stops on the threshold as Grimmjow passes him, eyes flitting about the silent room full of blinking monitors and mostly empty chairs. There’s a few techs running their typical diagnostics, huddled at a sprawl of three computer systems in the far corner. They give the two of them a fleeting glance of attention and then resolutely focus back on their work. In the low light of LOCCENT, Kurosaki’s skin looks washed out, his dark circles so stark its almost concerning. The muted chatter of voices in the conference room is spilling out into the control room: Hirako, Yoruichi, and the Marshal. He pays no mind to the voices, taking short, almost hesitant steps further into the hub of the Shatterdome. 

“Cold feet?” Grimmjow calls out softly and Kurosaki’s wandering eyes slide to him, slow as molasses. It’s hard to hold that gaze for too long, as bright and glittering as struck flint. 

“No,” Kurosaki scoffs immediately, face contorting into its seemingly permanent scowl. “It’s just… been awhile.” 

Grimmjow can relate since the first time he’d set foot in LOCCENT was just a few weeks ago, even though he’d been in Tokyo for a little over a year. He couldn’t bring himself to do it at first, to even be on the same level, much less be in the control room to watch missions. He was never summoned either, so he’d really never had any reason to be here until his reactivation. Considering his last trip here had ended with him stumbling into the hallway to have a full-blown panic attack after receiving some seriously fucked up information, he’s almost glad not to be alone. If only said seriously fucked up information wasn’t the one keeping him company. 

He comes to a halt in front of Grimmjow who is standing just out of the line of sight of the conference room. His hands are shoved deep in the pockets of his pants, the sleeves of his hoodie pushed up to his elbows, blood pressure and heartrate still too fuckin’ high, and he realizes then that he never even stopped to get himself a cup of coffee as Kurosaki meets his eye. He says nothing and Grimmjow says nothing, but the communication in the nuclear reactor brightness of Kurosaki’s hazel eyes comes across loud and clear: We’re in this together now.

So, Grimmjow turns and throws the conference room door open to the startled faces of the three seated at the table, as if they weren’t expecting him. Hirako, looking as bored as always, Yoruichi with a creepily sly smile on her face, and the Marshal who looks the most like Grimmjow just interrupted something, a teacup halfway to his lips. His eye slides from Grimmjow to just behind him and then it’s him _and_ Yoruichi looking sly as shit, and Grimmjow doesn’t like it one bit.

“I see you kids have saved us the trouble of having to summon you separately,” the Marshal comments as he sets his teacup back into its saucer, looking between the two of them. An amused smile is pulling at his lips as he observes them standing shoulder to shoulder, nearly touching, before he breathes out a long suffering sigh. “Well, sit down, boys. We have a few things to discuss.” 

Yoruichi watches with an absolutely delighted fucking look in her eyes, hand daintily covering her smile, as the two of them pull out chairs and sit down nearly in tandem. Hirako just has the same stupid look on his face, his ever-present tablet on the table in front of him. Grimmjow sucks in a shaky breath, one he hopes no one hears, in an attempt to calm his own frayed nerves. It does little good as the Marshal picks up his teacup once more and takes a measured, leisurely swig as if they had all the time in the world. It’s this practiced calm, this unflinching attitude in the face of literal chaos, that Grimmjow has come to assume must come with experience and age. Shunsui Kyouraku has weathered enough storms in his life to learn how to become the eye. It’s so god damned difficult sometimes to remember that he can’t be running his mouth the way that comes so naturally at his commanding officer.

“I s’pose even without our final assessment that the two of you have settled on each other’s company.” It’s an observation just this side of cheeky that triggers Grimmjow to scowl immediately and Kurosaki’s right knee to begin bouncing erratically. Marshal Kyouraku waves a hand in a lighthearted, almost dismissive gesture. “But for the sake of official formality, the two of you have proven to be not only physically compatible but Drift compatible as well and have been fully cleared for active duty pending the full functionality of our in-progress Jaeger.” 

“Thank you, sir,” Kurosaki murmurs and it sounds as diplomatic and official as the Marshal is trying to make the moment. Grimmjow just nods numbly, heart still stampeding in his chest. It hasn’t stopped since he bolted from his own bedroom, leaving smirking Yoruichi of all people behind.

The Marshal looks between the two of them before grinning warmly and gesturing to Hirako. “To business then, yes?” 

Whipping his stylus out from behind his ear in a dramatic flutter of his straw-blond hair, Hirako’s tablet illuminates and he flips at lightspeed through something before sending the tablet sliding across the table towards Grimmjow and Kurosaki. “We built a simulator rig to initiate your first drift,” he announces and bears the weight of both Grimmjow and Kurosaki’s stares without so much as a flinch. “We thought it best to do at least the first run in a controlled environment, outside of a fully weaponized Jaeger, so that we can attain proper readings.”

Grimmjow looks down at the tablet that Kurosaki pushes towards him to see a photograph of what looks like an unfinished Conn-pod, what the under-construction Jaeger might even look like inside right now. It’s definitely more advanced then the simulator all potential pilot candidates used to simulate drops. That machine was simply for practice, more a knock-off virtual reality experience than anything. _This_ thing looks like something even Grimmjow’s overactive brain would conjure up in the night. And if these are actual photos and not just mock-ups, then they really had gone out of their way to build a simulation Conn-pod, all the way down to the hull door. The rig and the screens and the visual field are all sleek, the controls far more streamlined than Grimmjow is accustomed to. Likely modeled after what will end up in the unfinished Jaeger if it isn’t already there, it’s clear that the tech has come along quite a bit since Grimmjow went out of commission. He doesn’t remember Tres Espada having quite so many buttons on her main control panel.

“It’s fully capable of simulating and maintaining a Drift, and extends a level of safety to all parties involved as there’s no possibility of… accidentally triggering weaponry.” He gives Hirako the blandest look he can manage as Kurosaki’s leg begins to bounce hard enough to rattle his chair. Might as well just come out and say it, Grimmjow thinks. The two of them are mighty fucked up, and that’s putting it lightly, and everything that could be done would be done so they didn’t accidentally blow everyone to kingdom come. Grimmjow shoves the tablet back across the table, sending it skittering into Hirako’s lap. Calm fucker doesn’t even splutter or complain as he sets it back on the table and slides his stylus back behind his ear. 

“Sounds like fun,” Grimmjow grunts, and shoves his hands into his hoody pockets to conceal how they’ve started to shake a little. The Marshal’s small smile acknowledges his forced enthusiasm and Yoruichi is watching him like he’s prey, dinner that she doesn’t intend to let escape. 

“Kisuke has already been made aware of the situation, Ichigo. You will finish out today under his supervision and then you will continue to serve this Shatterdome as a Ranger.” The Marshal sits up a little straighter, gently pushing his teacup and saucer aside. And even with the absolutely ridiculous pink flowered kimono draped over his shoulders like a shawl, the presence he commands with that posture alone makes Grimmjow want to sit up a little straighter too. 

It’s weird to hear someone else say Kurosaki’s given name, so weird that it makes Grimmjow freeze up a little and stalls Kurosaki’s infernally bouncing knee. Though it’s more than likely the news than his name being used that sets him off. Grimmjow opens his mouth, but snaps it shut on the torrent of stupid shit that was just about to come out of it. These decisions are far above his pay grade.

He just thought that… well, that him and Kurosaki would have more _time._ The compatibility of Drifting, at least in Grimmjow’s opinion, boiled down to only a few things: understanding of one another and trust. And if the last twenty-four hours isn’t a comprehensive demonstration about how little Grimmjow knows about Kurosaki, he doesn’t know what else is. He doesn’t want to sit around and gossip like old biddies, compare every aspect of their lives until they run out of things to talk about. He just had questions. Sensitive-shit questions, some of which he’d got some answers for but was greedy for more information now.

As if reading Grimmjow’s thoughts, the Marshal clears his throat and presses on. “We don’t have the luxury of time, gentlemen. Your first assessment will be tomorrow, 0900.” 

Kurosaki’s sharp inhale of breath to his left echoes the anxiety Grimmjow can’t seem to voice. But he stays silent as well because he too must know. This ain’t either of their first rodeos. They both know the situation out there, they’d have to be dead and buried not to be aware. It was why this felt so rushed, why Kurosaki looked like he hadn’t slept in a year since he was spending every possible, waking hour hauling ass to help finish that Jaeger. There simply wasn’t anymore time left.

“Ranger Kurosaki, if you would step out for a moment, please. I believe Dr. Unohana wanted to have a word with you.”

Kurosaki stares at the Marshal for a heartbeat or two longer before his gaze slides to Grimmjow who dares not make eye contact with him. He’s not thrilled by this sudden turn of events. He had questions, damn it. Grimmjow had questions and shit to say and air that still felt like it needed clearing and now it had to wait, probably until they were in each other’s heads. Kurosaki stands up wordlessly and bows low, the full show of respect from a Japanese native for his commanding officer, and exits the conference room on silent feet. 

Hirako follows in short order, rambling on about final checks on the simulator rig. Yoruichi beats him to the door, having read the room, and holds it open for him, sliding Grimmjow a sideways glance that said she wouldn’t be far behind. The door clicks shut for a second time and then it’s just Grimmjow and Marshal Kyouraku, and to say his nerves revolt instantly would be an understatement. He focuses down at the bent metal of his hoodie’s zipper and tries to get his shit together as quietly as possible.

“This won’t be easy, Grimmjow,” Kyouraku comments quietly, and Grimmjow’s head snaps up at the lack of formality. “Ranger Kurosaki has suffered a considerable loss, and his grief runs as deeply as his devotion to the PPDC. I know you both will bring your very best to this initial test, but please don’t be insulted when I say I anticipate it being a shitshow.”

All Grimmjow can do is blink in astonishment, mouth falling open a little. Marshal Kyouraku watches him with his one eye as he attempts to collect himself, swallowing thickly before speaking. “With all due respect, sir, it sounds like we’re both shitshows.”

The Marshal barks out a surprised laugh that leaves Grimmjow feeling a little rattled, hackles up, this entire conversation having defied every way he thought it would go. “A fair point,” he concedes with a curt nod, reaching up to rub at the scruff along his jawline. “I thought it only right to give you the same fair warning.”

Grimmjow goes rigid at this comment, knows the Marshal has said it not only to be as equitable as he just insisted but also to gauge his reaction. So, someone has brought Kurosaki up to speed on the literal dumpster fire that’s Grimmjow’s psyche then. Well, it’s one less conversation they would have to have before essentially exchanging brains.

“Someone told him?” he asks anyway, hoping his face is as neutral looking as he’s trying to make it seem. Kurosaki had already admitted that he _knew_ about Grimmjow, that he’d known about Tres Espadas. It was fuckin’ stupid to think that he didn’t also know about Grimmjow’s sisters, about what had happened to them, about what had happened to _him._

“Ichigo was made aware of the circumstances when he came in for his assessment,” the Marshal confirms, watching Grimmjow closely. “And he still agreed to be tested knowing such.”

It’s like a torpedo, the way that single sentence sinks down into Grimmjow’s brain and detonates. He’s staring at the tabletop, vision blurring a little from not blinking. Fuck, that’s… _nothing_. It’s _everything_. They’d told Kurosaki _before_ he’d began his assessment that Grimmjow was royally screwed in the head, and he’d _still agreed._ He’d still done it, still gone through with it, still planned to go through with it. The very notion leaves Grimmjow reeling.

“I will see you tomorrow morning, Ranger, 0900. Rest well.” It’s a dismissal in it’s purest form, and Grimmjow nearly trips over his own chair as he makes a hasty exit, leaving the Marshal alone. 

He gets out of the conference room, out of the LOCCENT hub, and into the still empty hallway where he’d had a melt down a few weeks ago, and spots Yoruichi posted up next to a huge pipe running the height of the wall. She pushes off when she catches sight of him and jogs to catch up as he blitzes past her, headed for the elevator. 

“I’ll kill you,” Grimmjow hisses under his breath as Yoruichi rushes into the elevator after him. There’s no real fervor behind it though because he’s exhausted, physically and mentally. “I’m gonna park my foot so far up your ass they’ll give me a pedicure at your next dentist appointment.”

“Gross,” Yoruichi comments with a glittering grin, totally unfazed as he turns away from her with a sneer to hit the floor button for the refectory. He’d genuinely consider murder for the next thing to get between him and coffee. She slithers her arms under his own and hugs him tight from behind. He hopes she can’t feel his hummingbird pulse, but wouldn’t be shocked if she could considering it’s all he can hear pounding away in his own head.

“I think, someday, you’ll thank me,” she murmurs against his spine, squeezing him even tighter around his midsection. 

“What the fuck for? A Jonah complex and a crippling addiction to strawberry candy?”

Yoruichi says nothing, just drives one of her knife-like elbows directly into Grimmjow’s left kidney, causing him to shout in both surprise and pain. They squabble the whole elevator ride down, a half-pulled punch to one of her tits, a finger poked viciously into one of his eyes. It brings a welcome sense of normalcy to the situation, into his frantic, scattered headspace.

He doesn’t want to go in unprepared. He’d wanted to ask Kurosaki a few questions, check the asshole’s closet for any additional skeletons, look under the bed for any monsters lying in wait. But maybe it was better this way, to go in mostly blind. A trust fall, of all the ironic god damn things.

**~**

Grimmjow dreams of being a boy again, of the monkey bars in the field beside the church where he and his sisters were raised and schooled. He dreams of clutching the metal in a death-grip, eyes screwed shut, just hanging. He’s afraid to uncurl his fingers, he’s afraid of the drop, doesn’t know where the ground is from up there. He never thinks about it when he’s in motion, when his body is swinging, carrying him from bar to bar until he reaches the end.

“ _Let go, Grimmjow, let go,_ ” a nun coos from somewhere down below. “ _You’ll be just fine, Grimmjow. Let go._ ”

In reality, he doesn’t. She has to pry his little fingers from the metal bar as he kicks, wailing as she gently lowers him to the grass, safe and sound. But in his dream, he does. Grimmjow lets go and he plummets, eyes still screwed shut, wind howling in his ears as he drops. The sensation is so much like being in the Conn-pod of Tres Espada’s head as it falls to rest between it’s shoulders, that he half expects to be right there when his eyes fly open.

But it’s just the empty bunk above him and the concrete walls of his own room, echoing his ragged breaths back to him.

**~**

There’s a level of tension and excitement that even Grimmjow can’t deny as he enters the Drivesuit Room the next morning, sees Kurosaki already standing in position. He’s glancing about, eyes flitting here and there, to people and machinery and down at himself like he can’t quite believe where he is. Their circuitry suits are black as pitch, the first weird misnomer that Grimmjow had spent an unreasonable amount of time staring down at himself, processing. His old one had been a charcoal grey, his Drivesuit armor a few shades closer to white, lined in black. One glance at the crate hanging open behind Kurosaki tells him that their new armor is going to be black as well. Bit morbid, he thinks as he steps up beside Kurosaki whose head swivels to take him in. They spend an awkward moment sizing each other up, literally, before Kurosaki cracks a droll grin, gloved hand plucking a little at the smoother fabric hugging his side.

“Tighter than I remember,” he comments and Grimmjow can’t help but smirk right back.

“Let yourself go, did ya?”

“Hell no,” Kurosaki counters, sweeping a hand down, gesturing to himself, all legs and lithe muscles. “Black is slimming, Jaegerjaquez. I’m in peak physical health according to this onesie.”

He looks like he didn’t sleep any more than Grimmjow did, exhausted and eager all the same. He’s fidgeting a little already, unable to hold still, like he’s the one that drank three cups of coffee this morning, not Grimmjow.

Grimmjow gets a fleeting look at the armor before the tech is securing it to his chest and he has to glance awkwardly down at himself. Tres Espadas’ armor had been bulky, whole plates that were almost immovable. The armor they strap to his chest and abdomen is so much lighter, pearlescent black lames that overlap neatly along his sides, wrapping around and riveted together at the core points of his abdomen and his shoulders. He can’t stop himself from leaning to one side, awed by the way the armor allows him to do so, lames folding over themselves as he bends. His old armor never would have been able to do that. Every piece they screw together and secure is like that, fully articulated, even his fucking fingers, a plate for each knuckle and segment of bone. He glances excitedly over at Kurosaki, who’s too busy marveling down at himself in a similar fashion to notice Grimmjow’s wandering gaze, and observes the culet of the back-plate armor as they fit it to Kurosaki’s back. Fucking sweet is what it is. Nothing at all like the colossal, heavy armor he once wore.

Grimmjow is downright giddy by the time they latch his spine into place, plates locking down and securing themselves. A tech hands him his helmet and he snorts softly; the fucking relay gel is the same color as his hair, and it’s got an odd sort of pearlescence to it. A sideways glance at Kurosaki tells him it doesn’t escape his notice either, and they both slip into their helmets. Grimmjow breathes out slowly against the plexiglass face as the gel drains into his circuitry suit, unwilling to breathe the cloying scent in even after all this time. He startles slightly when the cracks between the black lames of his armor begin to glow blue, and gives the tech a disconcerted look.

“New gel tech,” she says dismissively as she finishes screwing in his last shoulder plate. “Glows purple when it comes in contact with blood. Easier to find wounds and leaks they told us.”

He’s not sure who’s responsible for this, but they should be given a fuckin’ raise, he decides. Because it’s awesome to look down at his own arms and see the bioluminescent glow of dispersed relay gel, and an entire other thing to look over at Kurosaki and see it in full. Leaner than Grimmjow and almost as tall, he cuts an intimidating figure garbed in gleaming black, the diffused turquoise shine limning every line of him like a comet. He’s glorious to behold, makes something weird and tight and _hot_ clench in Grimmjow’s chest just looking at him.

Kurosaki turns his head, lopsided grin visible plain as day. “You look like a B-grade superhero,” he laughs, and Grimmjow flips him the bird with his fully articulated middle finger.

The walk out the Drivesuit Room and back into the elevator to ride the singular floor up to where the simulator rig has been built is exceptionally weird, for both of them. There’s soft chattering in both their helmets from the communications line open to LOCCENT that’s low enough in volume to tune out. Kurosaki fidgets the entire short ride, impresses Grimmjow and also himself when he does a couple high knees with ease.

“It’s so… light,” he remarks as he flexes his fingers, folding them in them one by one to form a fist. “Like something’s missing. How’s my ass look in it?” He pivots a little to try and look over his shoulder at himself, but the armor doesn’t seem to be _that_ flexible. 

“What ass?” Grimmjow retorts as the doors slide open.

A short hallway of all concrete, striped horizontally with black-hashed yellow like some kind of danger zone. And at the not-so-far end is a door, a hull door to be precise. It looks exactly like a real one too and Kurosaki whistles low beside him as he takes it in.

“They really wanted to sell this experience, I guess,” he comments, and Grimmjow snorts his agreement as the two techs stationed beside it haul it open to let them through. 

Grimmjow goes right, Kurosaki goes left, and they say nothing on the matter. His left arm is shot, he wouldn’t be able to work the left hemisphere even if he _wanted_ to. How Kurosaki knows this, whether it’s something else that someone told him in advanced or something he guessed for himself after seeing all of Grimmjow’s scars, is the mystery of the moment. Grimmjow knows that the second he gets settled into the rig, some smart mouth in LOCCENT is going to tell him his vitals are too high. And they are. Even as they both just stand and look around the space emulating a true Conn-pod. All it’s lacking is the utterly unnecessary details. Where usually would be more machinery, massive freon tubes and channels for all the heavy-duty wiring, there’s only plain walls all around the large screen meant to serve as the visual field. The screen is a soft navy of octagons patterned repeatedly and the lights of the control panel buttons blink randomly on and off like twinkling stars. The nostalgia and the mourning are lodged in Grimmjow’s throat and they both burn like stomach acid as he takes it all in for the first time in over a year, tries to appreciate it just a little.

Kurosaki is standing by the left rig and it’s jarring to Grimmjow, so much so that he stops in his tracks, snaps his mouth closed on the snappy remark he’d had ready. It’s so strange to see only two rigs instead of three. He thought he’d be prepared for it, knew that it would be this way, but it still catches him off guard. Kurosaki seems to notice, gaze going a little soft around the eyes, even behind his helmet. He takes a step forward, grabbing a hold of one of the arm supports of the rig.

“You trust me?” he asks outright, soft, quiet enough that if it weren’t for all the other people in their helmets with headsets on listening to every word, might have been a question only Grimmjow would have heard. He’s staring right at Grimmjow, _through_ Grimmjow.

And Grimmjow has never felt more transparent, even in faintly glowing, all-black armor. The question knocks the air out of his lungs. Because there it is. The ultimate question that all his own needling, obsessive questions would lead to. All the ones he wanted to ask before this moment, the ones he still wants to ask, the ones that are about to get answered in the most violating way possible.

“Not yet,” Grimmjow murmurs truthfully, taking a step towards his own rig. It feels so stupidly like a show of good faith, as if there’s even a remote possibility he’d turn around now.

“I can work with that.” Kurosaki nods enthusiastically, his kilowatt smile hard to miss as he puts his first foot down into his rig, toe then heel. The resounding thud of the rig locking into his Drivesuit boots spurs Grimmjow into action.

The techs make short work of securing them completely into the simulator, attaching what should be all the hoses of their life support system into the ports on the back of their Drivesuits. It’s by no means a functional system, but at least cold air is blowing into his helmet now, and Grimmjow hauls in an aching lungful of sterile-smelling air.

“G’mornin’, gentlemen!” comes Hirako’s drawl through their helmets and Grimmjow groans audibly at the pure, inescapable circumstance that’s about to force him to listen to the lazy bastard until this shitshow is over.

Kurosaki raises his arm to hold down the comm line. “Morning, Shinji,” his warm voice crackles through. And the cold air blowing is all too suddenly a total fucking blessing because through the comms in his helmet, it sounds like Kurosaki is whispering right in his ear and Grimmjow’s body goes stupidly hot all over.

"Both lookin’ a lil keyed up, so do me a favor n’take a nice, deep breath and relax.”

Grimmjow scowls straight ahead as the screen begins to come to life before them, but Kurosaki actually listens, hauls in a breath audible even through their comms. Desperately needing something to do with his hands, Grimmjow reaches up to flip all the protocol switches into active and is struck by how rote it feels. How familiar, how routine, even though he hasn’t done it in over a year, even though he’d only glanced at the control panel. The nostalgia rears its ugly head again, and he forces himself not to look over at Kurosaki, not to look in what feels like the wrong direction, not to look and only see one person. He tries to squash that shit down fast, tries to box it up, chain it down, hang some cement from it, and drop it into the black abyss of his own insides.

“Rangers, ready when you are,” the Marshal hums and Grimmjow finally takes that deep breath Hirako instructed him to as the Conn-pod door lock clangs into place behind them.

“Ready,” Kurosaki replies and Grimm can’t help but notice the mild tremor in his voice. That’s his only solace as he reaches up to hold the comm line down again, that Kurosaki has to be feeling _the exact same way_ right now.

“Let’s go.” He looks over at Kurosaki only briefly, fleeting, as fast as he can, too afraid to get caught up in it. Just a view of black armor bathed in blue light, reflecting off the mask of his helmet as his head hangs almost as though he’s in prayer.

“Initiating neural handshake in fifteen… fourteen…” comes the Neural Bridge Operator’s soft voice through his helmet, and he tunes out her countdown. His heart is like a caged animal, thrashing erratically in his chest as he stands there, fully locked into the simulator rig. He’s vividly aware of Kurosaki beside him and they’re not even in each other’s heads yet. _It really is a good thing this isn’t an actual Jaeger,_ he thinks momentarily, _we’d probably blow this entire place off the fucking map without meaning to._

It’s a rush of bitter cold that sweeps through him as he gets pulled in a million different directions at once. Frigid, icy air blasts right in his face and the memories that zip past at lightning speed are just his own for a moment: him and Nel and Tier as kids, a blip of the church where they went to school, his life’s belongings in a backpack as they traveled in search of a purpose, the memory of the three of them going all the way to Los Angeles to enroll in the Jaeger Academy, the invincible feeling of taking down their first Kaiju together. It begins to devolve, unraveling around him, he can fucking feel it. The way those memories full of golden, west coast sunshine begin to turn blue, like blood soaking in, staining everything Kaiju blue and a torrent of human crimson, swirling together into an awful almost-purple that washes up Jaeger parts and Kaiju parts and body parts onto the shore of Lima. And Grimmjow yanks back on that memory, that RABIT, so hard it damn near feels like he’s given himself an aneurysm, but it’s already gone. Slipped through his fingers and back into the miasma of suffering flowing between them.

And then it’s all Kurosaki, with a whole beautiful fucking family like a photograph, only every flash of connection pulls another person from the picture. _Flash_ , a woman with the kindest eyes he’s ever seen disappears and in her place is a burned-out hole smeared over in blood. _Flash_ , the pale copy of Kurosaki with his confident gaze and wild smile disappears, leaving behind a ragged, torn gouge, a gaping, hollow hole. A dojo, a high school soccer field, a view of Tokyo from way high up and long before it became the cobbled together metropolis that it is now. He plummets off the edge of that skyscraper, free-falling, until a riptide of frozen water pulls him under. And for all of his experience, for all his drops and Kaiju kills and years of successful drifting, it’s not his own RABIT that Grimmjow ends up chasing, it’s Kurosaki’s.

A blizzard of swirling white and even from inside the warmer confines of the Jaeger Conn-pod, he can hear the crunch of snow under heavy feet as it trudges on. The white beneath him gives way to churning, murky waters, tinged ever so slightly blue, and the machine of death he’s piloting doesn’t even hesitate as it surges forward effortlessly into the waves. The vision shutters a little, like old film patched together poorly, before refocusing.

And then there’s nothing between him and the raging black sea and a Kaiju screeching at a pitch that makes blood drip from his ears. The entire face of the Jaeger and the Conn-pod has been ripped away and there’s a puncture in his Drivesuit armor where something has speared right through to his chest and cleaved everything open right down to his sternum. It’s numb in the shock of the moment. The frozen sea air is bitingly cold on his exposed face. He has no sight in his left eye, his vision blackened there, and the pain in both his arms where the plates of his Drivesuit armor have been crushed into his skin, tearing through it like tissue paper, is excruciating. He looks, he can’t stop himself, turns his head to the right and sees the slumped form of the other pilot in white Drivesuit armor that has been drenched a vivid red.

But it’s nothing, _nothing, nothing,_ compared to the agony of feeling like someone has pierced through his chest wound and reached up his raw throat and eviscerated his brain. He can’t breathe, a fading pulse, there’s only fear. The purest, most undiluted terror he’s ever felt, steeling into his limbs until he’s colder than the air rushing in. _Not like this, there’s no one else._ He gasps and it rattles in his lungs, wet and coppery, and he pulls hard on the tether attached to his soul, strong and golden and steadfast, holds it like the lifeline that it is. _No, no, no, I can’t leave him, I won’t leave him._ It breaks. He goes numb, the feeling doesn’t come back. The terror remains, it never leaves.

And then it all falls away, like the curtain dropping on a performance. It’s gone, just like that, leaving Grimmjow reeling.

There’s nothing like the peace of the drift, the wash of blue silence, the safety and the trust thrumming along every nerve. Grimmjow, Nel, and Tier had piloted Tres Espadas for six years together, the only triple-pilot team to ever exist. So, Grimmjow is _very_ familiar with what it feels like to have not one, but two other people sharing his headspace. Grimmjow had already been bracing himself, psyching himself into this since they’d gone their separate ways after yesterday morning. The fact that even if they can drift well together, Grimmjow is always going to feel and therein always going to convey that something is _missing._ A _someone_ , a blank void, a silent and emptied space where a third person should fit because that’s the only other drift experience he’s ever known.

But the moment that their neural connection stabilizes, the absolute second that Grimmjow sinks into Kurosaki’s brain and Kurosaki sinks into his, there’s nothing but screaming. Shrill, ear-splitting, barely human screaming that fills his head and floods his nervous system, and Grimmjow _knows_ it’s not coming from him. It’s by fucking willpower alone that it doesn’t immediately knock him out of alignment. In the next few seconds, he can _feel_ Kurosaki reach a hand out, reach out like an older sibling, the way Tier used to always reach for Grimmjow when he was too keyed up. Kurosaki reaches out and in some inexplicable way manages to _grab_ ahold of the screaming and yank it down, as if it was floating above them somehow, as if he was forcing it to _sit,_ like an exasperated parent reining their child in. The screaming stops and the silence of the drift that reigns after is not the calm, soothing experience that Grimmjow remembers. It’s eerie, it’s unsettling, and it makes him feel like he’s suffocating in his Drivesuit.

And then that blank void, that silent and empty space between them that Grimmjow can _physically_ feel as though it’s a hole punched directly through his guts, the hole where a third person should be, fills in. Grimmjow is barely holding on to their neural link at that point, holding it like it’s a fraying rope dangling over an endless ravine that’s snapping fiber by fiber. The emptiness fills in and it fills up, and there’s no pulse there, no vitals to confirm that what has entered that space is alive in any capacity. But the energy that thrums from the space, spreads out, washing over Grimmjow and Kurosaki, can’t be classified as strictly _dead_ either. Grimmjow feels like he’s holding his breath in anticipation, and he can feel Kurosaki’s dread and apprehension like it’s his own, as the energy between them pulses as though it’s feeling _him_ out.

_‘Oh, Ichi, you didn’t say he was cute.’_

The rope snaps, and Grimmjow recoils hard enough to knock them both out of alignment.

**~**

The stronger the drift, the sharper the comedown from it is, and Grimmjow never, not in six years, not in ten missions, _ever_ felt like this with his sisters. Their unique situation as a triple-pilot team hadn’t made them immune to drift hangovers by any means. Their level of ‘cling-wrapping’ to each other post-drift, exiting their Jaeger stuck to one another like someone had glued them together, had been the study of many an academic paper that Grimmjow always and purposefully neglected to read. The longer the mission, the longer the hangover too. There’s one he can remember, when they were stationed in Lima, they were defending the coastline and they were linked together for _fourteen hours_. When they finally got back to shore, disconnected, and got out of their Conn-pod, Grimmjow could remember having to be touching both of them at all times in at least some way for the next two days straight. He couldn’t even tell who was thinking what for the first twelve hours after because they were ghost-drifting so strongly. Could remember at one point feeling like he had to piss and all three of them standing up, even though it was Nel whose bladder actually needed the attention. And Grimmjow and Tier had held her hands and turned their backs away while they all stood in the bathroom together. They’d showered together, they’d pushed their standard issue, twin-sized cots together and slept in a pile of long limbs all tangled up until they felt like they were three instead of one. 

Cling-wrapping, or velcroing as the techs at the Lima Shatterdome used to call it, was something pilots didn’t really discuss, even with other pilots who knew what it felt like, that soul-deep need to be just about joined at the hip with your copilot. It was immensely personal and private, as intimate as the drift.

So, when Grimmjow bolts from the Conn-pod simulator, needing distance from Kurosaki and needing it _now_ , every step he takes feels like its flaying a piece of his skin off in the slowest, most painful way possible. He gets about four steps outside of the faux-hull door as techs swarm around him, his gloved hands scrabbling frantically to get his helmet off, before he sinks to his knees, feeling simultaneously numb and like someone has set him on fire. There are other hands pushing his aside not a moment later and finally pulling the release on his helmet, and he hauls in a lungful of relay-gel free air like a newborn taking its first breath.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Grimmjow,” he can hear Kurosaki saying as he also drops to his knees. He throws his arms around Grimmjow in an instant, reeling him in and winding around him. One arm snakes across the back of his armored shoulders and crushes them together, the other going straight for his head, long, gloved fingers sinking into the damp, blue hair at the nape of his neck. And that simple contact, just being within arm’s reach of him, instantly soothes some of the numbness Grimmjow feels.

“I thought I had it under control, I’m so sorry.”

 _Under control?_ Grimmjow feels like he wants to fucking _cry._ He knew that it might be rough drifting with Kurosaki, had anticipated it. The Marshal had warned him, Dr. Unohana had warned him. And, he’d warned each one of them right back: he wasn’t exactly a walking poster child for stellar mental health either. But he’d never in a million years expected it to be like _that_ , to feel like _that_.

Fucking hell, it’s like Shiro Kurosaki is still _alive_. Grimmjow could _feel_ him, right there in the drift beside him, had heard his warbling, drift-distorted voice crystal clear when it spoke. It’s like he’s still alive in there, a carbon copy preserved in the brain of his living brother, an active ghost-drift.

When Kurosaki pulls away a fraction of an inch, Grimmjow lifts his arms without thinking about it, reaches up and grasps Kurosaki’s face between his still-gloved hands. Wide, amber eyes stare back at him, stare into him, amber and too much like the actual gemstone because Grimmjow swears he can see a layer of gold in there somewhere. The gold of Shiro Kurosaki trapped in that amber, preserved for all time. His hands are shaking and Grimmjow would be mortified in any other situation, but it’s way too late for embarrassment because Kurosaki knows everything about him now. So, Grimmjow holds his cheeks like that, keeps them nose-to-nose, so close that his entire fucking world is just Kurosaki and his huge, hazel eyes, until he can’t bear to look in them any longer. He drops his hands to Kurosaki’s shoulders and closes the short distance, leaning his sweaty forehead against Kurosaki’s own soaked one and just breathes him in.

“They’re beautiful,” Kurosaki says, breath ghosting across Grimmjow’s face, their lips so close they almost brush. “Nel and Tier, they’re beautiful, and they loved you so much.”

“I could feel him,” Grimmjow whispers, and his voice is shaking just like the rest of him. “Like he was right there.”

“I know, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Kurosaki murmurs again, hands settling atop Grimmjow’s where they rest on his own shoulders, squeezing them as tight as he can through the armor-plating on the backs of Grimmjow’s Drivesuit gloves. Grimmjow can’t seem to find the words in that moment, to tell Kurosaki he doesn’t want him to be sorry, that he never wants him to feel sorry. 

There’s a keening in his ears, a ringing, a melody that sounds awfully like an all too familiar Gaelic lullaby layered over in broken screaming.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> serving you canonically confirmed bookworm Ichigo

Techs are picking up Grimmjow’s helmet from the floor, prying him and Kurosaki apart despite _both_ of their protests. There are fingers holding Grimmjow’s right eye open, shining a light into it, so bright it feels like he’s staring into the fucking sun. Someone else presses a whole wad of tissues to his nose and holds it there. He tries to jerk his head away, but someone’s got a whole hand around the back of his skull, holding him in place. All he can focus on is the group of them shuttling Kurosaki back, farther down the dinky little hallway, even as he does his level best to shoulder-check a few of them out of the way. It’s as he opens his mouth to bark out something truly nasty to whoever is manhandling his face that Grimmjow tastes it. Blood. His blood, iron in the back of his throat that he has to swallow down with a grimace.

They’ve got Kurosaki at the end of the damn hall now, but Grimmjow feels like he’s still swimming in his golden, orange head, all the concrete on his peripherals wavering like a heat mirage. Somebody is wagging a finger in front of his face, trying to get him to track it with his eyes like he’s been concussed. He reaches up to whack them away as the metal door at the other end heaves open with a creaking groan. And then Kurosaki is _gone,_ the hallway is empty on the other end, and the silence is deafening.

It’s easier to just go limp after that.

**~**

Grimmjow’s staring at the snowy bridge over blue waters again in Dr. Unohana’s office a precise hour and thirty-six minutes after his and Kurosaki’s first attempted drift. His leg is bouncing rapidly and when he reaches up to thumb at his nose, feeling like there’s still blood dried there, his hand is shaking like a leaf in a gale. He’s acutely aware of the way Dr. Unohana is watching him, eyes moving from his leg, to his hand, to his face with every other blink. She seems content to wait him out for a few minutes, but it must be abundantly clear that this isn’t something Grimmjow can just ride out.

“We don’t have to talk about the particulars,” she begins in a soft voice, clasping her hands atop her desk. Her dark hair is pleated neatly, hanging over her shoulder, her eyes as blue as the painted water Grimmjow is staring at. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re feeling right now?”

“You coulda told me,” Grimmjow mutters, deciding that tapping his hand repeatedly against the arm of the chair has to look better than it just shaking uncontrollably. His skin still feels like he’s been caught out in a blizzard, he can’t stop rubbing at his left eye, head still full of that warbling voice. “You coulda told me what I was walking into.”

“That would have been a violation of Mr. Kurosaki’s privacy,” she states plainly and that’s all it takes to get Grimmjow to break his staredown with the art on the walls.

“We have to _exist_ in each other’s heads, Doc,” he snaps, a flare of righteous indignation breaking through the frozen emptiness in his chest for a moment. Grimmjow was in the midst of another aftermath that Kurosaki should have been present for, but at least his absence this time is not by his choice. “Privacy is a luxury we don’t get.” 

Her expression hardens a little, more of a change than Grimmjow has ever seen. She was usually the master of subtlety. “Would you have wanted me to lay your red-lined psych evaluation out in front of Mr. Kurosaki and let him read through it for himself?” 

Grimmjow winces, her point like punch in the throat. He sits there for a moment in the silence, foot and hand tapping out a dull, out of sync rhythm, staring right through her. There’s still wind howling in his ears, chest aching like someone has taken an apple corer to it, anxiety having settled like freezer burn in his chest. He just— he wanted Kurosaki, he _needed_ Kurosaki. What sadist separates pilots after their first Drift, for fuck’s sake?

He takes the heel of his palm to his left eye again, pressing into it and releasing, waiting for the glittering rush of color to pass. “It was… it was like his brother was in there with us,” he murmurs, and he sees without really registering as Dr. Unohana’s expression softens, brow crumpling into something of pure empathy.

“The circumstances of Mr. Kurosaki’s case are unique,” she says just as quietly, and Grimmjow tries to focus on the jittering pattern of his breathing as his leg bounces, pull back into himself with his own breath. Slowly, he concentrates in on her face enough to properly _see_ her. “Though it has been my subject of study for the better part of a decade, I have no personal experience of being in a Drift with someone. I understand that a good deal of the counseling you’re going to get now will be through each other.”

“You quittin’ on me now, Doc?” he asks, half-joking, though he’s honestly not sure he could handle something like that, not now.

Her small smile is all the reassurance he needs, really. “Certainly not. But I know copilots become confidants the moment they share headspace. I just need to make sure that you both have the tools to assist one another.”

A tremor goes through Grimmjow’s whole body, and he clamps down hard on both armrests as if that can stop it. Cold, he’s fucking _cold,_ terror cold and empty save for the overabundance of questions he has now _._ The drift is supposed to be a Mind Meld, two— or three— pilots merging with their machine. The connection was built through memories, meaning that the stronger the bond, the better the drift compatibility. But Grimmjow had met Kurosaki all of a month and a half ago, had only that short span of time to get to know one another. He could only think that there was one thing that connected them, something just as powerful as siblinghood or a lifelong friendship: trauma, in its purest form. Instincts, fighting style, and _pain_ is what seems to draw the two of them together over and over again.

It’s what drew Grimmjow to him in the first place, bloody teeth, split knuckles, and spitfire eyes. Like a siren song he couldn’t break free from.

**~**

There’s little use in trying to hide his anxiety, palpable enough that his entire tiny bunker bedroom feels like swimming through jello. Though the humidity from the righteously hot marathon shower he’d just taken doesn’t help the jello-esque atmosphere of the room either. Grimmjow is a jittering, fidgeting mess of nerves and synapses firing in double time. Chewing on the edge of his sweater sleeve after he’s bitten all of his nails down to the quick, pacing trenches. All that’s keeping him upright is two whole pots of too strong coffee and a questionable bread roll he found in the back of his mini-fridge.

He hadn’t slept. There was no fucking way he would have without anything short of drug-induced sedation. Might have been an option if he’d asked after being cleared by medical. More flashlights shined in his eyes, up his nose, down his throat. There were still chafed pink marks dotted across his chest from the ECG lead stickers. Sleep wouldn’t have made anything better, he’d ultimately decided. Whether he was weighed down under the heavy blanket of medication or attempting it all on his own per usual. Grimmjow could still feel Kurosaki’s arm around his shoulders as though it was still there, his gloved hand cradling the back of his head. Worse yet was the sound of Shiro Kurosaki’s lilting voice still bouncing around the confines of his skull. He’d been running his hands through his god damn hair so much as he paced tiny circles around his room like a caged animal that it had to be just about slicked to his head now, shower be damned.

He had the whole experience in a stranglehold between both his hands right now. Trying to force it down, crush it, smother it deep down in the bowels of his soul, right next to all the other questions he had. Grimmjow was afraid to dwell on it, afraid to get lost in it again, swept away in the snowstorm and the hail of pain that was in the inside of Kurosaki Ichigo’s head. Today was the day though, for better or for worse. He had not a damn other thing to do today either. It was standard PPDC policy for copilots to share the same room. For convenience sake of both reserving as much space as possible in the Shatterdome and efficiency when a Jaeger had to be deployed. Didn’t matter that they’d botched their Drift this morning. They already had another simulation scheduled for the same time tomorrow, that information having been relayed to him as he’d left the Med Bay. Along with the news that Kurosaki would be moving in _today_ , as if Grimmjow hadn’t been put through the ringer already.

A sharp one-two knock sounds on the metal of the unlatched door, startling Grimmjow enough to get his shoulders to ratchet up, before it swings open slowly, hesitantly. And there’s Kurosaki with a military green, canvas duffel slung over one shoulder and a smallish, cardboard box balanced in his arms, looking awkward and apologetic.

Grimmjow can’t decide if he wants to punch him in the nose or pull him into the tightest hug in human history.

Kurosaki shuffles in, kicking the door shut behind him a little, enough for it to clang in the door frame. Not for the first fucking time and absolutely not for the last time, he looks _exactly_ like Grimmjow feels. _Exhausted,_ dark circles and mussed hair, eyes drooping a little with fatigue. He’s in black cargo pants that are a little tight around his thighs, standard issue boots laced to midcalf, a stained white tee shirt hanging loose on his shoulders. They stare at each other for longer than would be socially acceptable under reasonable circumstances. All Grimmjow can think about is _Shiro_ and the churning rage of the black ocean off the coast of Russia and Kurosaki’s cleaved open chest, and all the things he could have said stick in his throat.

“We gonna have the awkward roommate talk?” Kurosaki asks as he sets his box on the floor next to the door.

“Might as well,” he mutters, voice a horrendously hoarse croak he has to clear. “Make sure we’re both balanced and medicated, no skeletons in the closet?”

“Balanced, no, medicated, yes.” Kurosaki shrugs off his duffel, letting it thump unceremoniously to the floor. “It’s not a closet, it’s a storage unit. Toilet seat down, won’t stab me in my sleep?”

“I’m not a complete fuckin’ heathen,” Grimmjow scoffs, mildly offended as he watches Kurosaki’s gaze wander all over his room. It stops on his messy, unmade bottom bunk and on the hanging backpack full of old photographs. Those molten eyes slide back to Grimmjow and though his face betrays nothing, Grimmjow has been inside his fucking _head_ , and he knows. “Also night terrors, no sleepwalking, hope you sleep heavy. Don’t touch my OJ, and if you ever open the door for Yoruichi, I’ll make you sleep on the stairs.”

“Fair enough,” Kurosaki says, cracking a wry smile, and the scar that drips down his left cheek catches the dull light of the room as he squats down to unzip his duffel.

This was fine, Grimmjow could handle this. The same, old dance around the sensitive-shit topics they’d always done. Skirting the edges of topics that were too much, too personal, despite fucking _everything_ now. Only Grimmjow knew things about Kurosaki now, like how he couldn’t sleep with white noise, the raging hard-on he had for dark chocolate, and that his favorite color seemed to rotate with the seasons. Things they’d obviously never _talked_ about. All that information was just in his fucking head now.

Kurosaki is carting an armful of shit into the bathroom and pays him no mind, though he has to hear the way the cardboard rasps against itself, as Grimmjow pries the lid off of Kurosaki’s box to take a look into it like the snooping bastard he is. Grimmjow doesn’t know what he’s expecting, maybe assorted things from his position as Weapons Specialist, maybe even the prototype glove he’d been working on last week. He was expecting to see something that made sense, that fit the mold Grimmjow has been trying to shove Kurosaki in since they met. Instead, he finds books. At least twenty heavily-worn paperback books, tucked neatly and lovingly into the box. 

Shakespeare’s _Romeo and Juliet_ , the spine of it creased so badly it’s starting to fray at the top and bottom, is the first one he withdraws. “A word nerd, huh?” he calls just as Kurosaki strolls out of the bathroom emptyhanded.

Kurosaki grins, crooked and easy, and Grimmjow damn near takes a step back from him at the sight of it. “Just a little.”

Grimmjow flops down on his bunk and stares at the stupid, calligraphy scrawl of names across the cover that’s foxing on all its edges. Kurosaki kicks his empty duffel bag under as he approaches the bed and Grimmjow is gripping the flimsy, butterfly wing-thin pages so hard he’s surprised they don’t shred like tissue. He grabs hold of the metal frame and hoists himself up noiselessly, still booted feet dangling for a moment as he collapses into the bed. It’s hard not to ignore the plume of dust that seems to drift down, but not even a sniffle comes from above as Grimmjow thumbs the book open to the first page only to find it’s all in the original Old English. He groans and slaps the book closed again. 

“You actually read this shit?”

A chuckle comes from above him and Grimmjow stares up at the metal slats of the bunk above, studying the way the mattress is pressing down into them a little in a way it’s never done before. Not that it’s ever had an occupant until now. Jolting him from the beginnings of his wandering thoughts, Kurosaki’s boots come over the side, hitting the concrete floor with a resounding thunk, before his hand dangles over the edge of the bed, fingers stretched out.

“Hand it up, I’ll read it to you.”

And Grimmjow wants to protest, pitch a small fit about how awkward, and stupid, and _so fucking gay_ that would be. But the words stick in his throat, a trickling thrill running up his spine at the thought of Kurosaki’s warm voice reading aloud as he reaches up to place the edge of the book within Kurosaki’s grasp.

“Did you want me to start over or can I read from my place?”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Grimmjow rasps, throat dry like he’s swallowed sand. 

There’s a short shuffling of blankets as Kurosaki seems to rearrange himself before he leafs the book open. Another stupid zing of complicated joy goes through Grimmjow as he rolls to his side and hears Kurosaki clear his throat before beginning to read.

_“Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow’d night,  
Give me my Romeo: and, when he shall die,  
Take him and cut him out in little stars,  
And he will make the face of heaven so fine  
That all the world will be in love with night  
And pay no worship to the garish sun…”_

It’s like a straight shot of morphine, pulling his eyelids down, letting him sink into his lumpy excuse of a mattress. For the first time in over a year, the nightmares don’t catch up with him. Drifting off to the sound of Kurosaki whispering R _omeo and Juliet_ to the concrete walls of their now shared room.

**~**

The second drift is no better. And it’s not for lack of trying on Grimmjow’s part, or Kurosaki’s for that matter. It’s sabotage.

The blistering cold and searing pain that Grimmjow has decided must be Vladivostok, Kurosaki’s last drop with his twin brother, is what gets to him first. It’s starts off so much like their first drift, only it ends up being twice as fucked. The pain blanks out for a brief moment and then it’s nothing but voltage channeling down Grimmjow’s spine through his circuitry suit, every last tendon and cell of him pulled taut as he’s shocked violently. A crackling roll of energy and the distinct sensation that _something_ is missing. Everything blanks out again and then Grimmjow’s screaming, only it’s not really _him_ screaming.

He’s screaming and his body is too, a crashing symphony of electric agony and blood, on his chest, on his face, running from his nose. He’s screaming as claws slide free from the black fingertips of Tensa Zangetsu’s left hand and Grimmjow watches through the shredded visage of where the Jaeger’s visual field should be as that clawed left hand raises and gets a stranglehold on the throat of the Kaiju right in front of him. Blue, blue, Kaiju blue, and screaming echoed by the monster and the rig to his right suspending the corpse of his twin brother, his copilot, his soulmate, screaming too, discordant and awful and _so loud_.

Grimmjow swears he can feel Kurosaki reaching for him across their drift, trying to pull him back from this RABIT he’s been ensnared by, as he watches this old memory of the same Kurosaki beside him rip the throat out of an alien monster. He looks over at Kurosaki, but it’s the wrong direction, to his right when he should be looking to his left. It’s white armor stained red slumped in the rig. The Jaeger isn’t moving, but the armored shoulders are shaking, rattling silently, horrifyingly. It takes a moment for the thready, dissonant laugh to filter through, another moment for Grimmjow to realize that the laughter is coming from the shaking shoulders in white armor. The shoulders that are supposed to belong to a dead man.

_“Did you really think you were good enough?”_

An awful, cacophonous scream wails across their connection, sending ripples through the drift. An icy gust seems to whip through the blue of their headspace, wiping the memory away, and Grimmjow throws an arm up to shield his eyes against a flash as bright as a searchlight. The presence there, that space Grimmjow always associates with a third person, is growing stronger. He can almost make out the shadowed silhouette of someone if he squints hard enough, the outline of strong shoulders and a tapered waist. 

The brief shadow is interrupted by another shuttering memory of Kurosaki clipping in, restrained in a chair, leather bands cuffing his wrists, elbows, and ankles. He’s thrashing and _screaming,_ a broken, strangled, ragged sound of half sobbing and half a kind of rage that borders on animalistic. The collapsing walls around him are a stark white, and there’s blood welling up on his wrists where the leather is biting into his skin, dribbling down the arm of the chair, the red of it so, _so_ bright. Grimmjow doesn’t know what the fuck is going on here but the sound of Kurosaki wailing into an empty room, bleeding and broken and in _pain,_ is so visceral it makes his whole chest ache like he’s been cleaved open again.

 _“Do you fucking hear me? I’ll burn every fucking neuron in your brain until you’re a vegetable!”_ the same voice shrieks, closer now, louder. _“He’s a King and you’re nothing. You’re no one!”_

“That’s enough, Shiro!” And that’s Kurosaki’s voice cutting through the blizzard that their drift has become for the first time. 

Grimmjow half expects to see Kurosaki next to the hazy outline that seems to be approaching him rapidly. But another violent scream rips through their headspace, so loud it’s like the pitch of a dog whistle in his ears. Grimmjow doesn’t even have to be fully present to feel the drip of blood down his lips, under his helmet.

The alignment snaps, their connection dissolving into nothingness, and Grimmjow comes out of the drift gasping for breath like a newborn.

**~**

“It’s—” Kurosaki begins to say and his gaze is lightyears away, absolutely fixed and unblinking, head cocked slightly to the side, lips parted but Grimmjow doesn’t see his chest rise for what seems like eons. He knows that look, has seen it some mornings when he gets up and looks at himself in the mirror. The Thousand Yard Stare, dissociation at its best. “It’s hard to mourn him when he’s not really—” Kurosaki cuts himself off again, and then he inhales, tendons going taut in his neck as his chest rises sharply.

But it’s not dissociation, is it? Not the way Grimmjow feels it. It’s not the same as the way Tier and Nel settle around him like smoke, drift through his fingers like smoke when he reaches out for them. He never catches them. But they’re still there, heavy, lingering, like a marina fog rolling in early in the morning, lying low at the mouth of the bay. 

“They didn’t tell you, did they?” Kurosaki finally asks, and he blinks once, real slow, looking almost like he’s drifting off to sleep. Only he looks over at Grimmjow as he opens his eyes, gaze pinning Grimmjow like a butterfly to corkboard. His hair is comically orange against the mint-green painted walls of the Med Bay. “Dr. Unohana didn’t tell you? The Marshal? No one?”

“Tell me what?” Grimmjow manages to ask, voice a scratchy rasp, as he stares at Kurosaki’s sallow face and bright eyes.

“That I’m capital F, _fucked up._ How’d you say it? _Damaged_ _goods_. That I’ve got enough dents in my can that they had to decide how _desperate_ they really were for a pilot to find out if I was rotten inside or still edible.”

“That’s—”

“It’s _permanent,_ Grimmjow.” And the way he says it sounds less like a statement and more like a death sentence, like some kind of terminal illness diagnosis. “They’ve run so many tests that if piloting a Jaeger hasn’t already irradiated me, all the CT’s probably have.”

“Permanent?” Grimmjow parrots because he’s rapidly losing the thread of the conversation. 

“ _Shiro,_ it’s— he’s a permanent, active ghost drift. Because we were…” Kurosaki looks away from him sharply, throat bobbing as he swallows. “Because we were neurally connected while he _died._ ”

“I—”

“He’s afraid,” Kurosaki says in a rush and then flinches like someone just tried to take a swing at him. “He doesn’t want me to tell you that. But he’s afraid that you’re going to take me away, or take him away, and then he’ll be alone, _gone_.”

And Grimmjow _knows_. He _knows_ that. Could feel it, full and terror-cold, thrumming in every atom that they were sharing, and every one that they weren’t. “I wouldn’t,” he says, quiet, and earnest, and Kurosaki won’t even look at him now. If it weren’t for the IV bag he was currently hooked to, he’d have already stood up and tackled the bastard. _He’s you, he’s a part of you, maybe even more than Tier and Nel are a part of me anymore, and I want—_ “I won’t.”

Kurosaki heaves out a sigh that sounds like it comes all the way up from his toes and drops the icepack to the bed. He reaches up to grip his left shoulder, whole hand over the joint, rotating his palm across the clothed skin, kneading it. “It’s brutal, you know.”

“What’s brutal?” Grimmjow asks, glancing sidelong at him, gaze flickering down briefly to Kurosaki’s ministrations and back up to that sharp profile. 

Kurosaki gives him a look that calls him dumb in twelve different ways, all without words. “The phantom pain.” And with his index finger, Kurosaki draws the line on his own skin. Sloping down across the backside of his arm before swooping upwards, in a huge half-moon circle across the top of his shoulder, dipping low to end just at the crease of his armpit on his chest. The exact line, the _precise fucking shape,_ of the worst pain in Grimmjow’s still-attached but Jaeger-amputated left arm. The clean line where the Kaiju had ripped Grimmjow’s – _Tres Espadas—_ arm off.

Nobody— just the doctors should know that, and Grimmjow of course because it’s his god damn arm that’s still attached in all the ways that matter, and his pain. And maybe he and Kurosaki had already tried and spectacularly botched two drifts, but Kurosaki shouldn’t be able to— _How_? Not with the way it had been all Kurosaki all the time in there, Shiro surging forward with a protective vengeance. Grimmjow honestly thought that none of him, none of his memories or his RABITs, was getting loose. But maybe it just hadn’t happened _yet_ , he thinks, as Kurosaki watches him with narrowed eyes and a jaw that’s growing more tense by the second. There's a conviction forming in those dangerously hazel eyes.

Grimmjow expects it to happen, feels a bit like a soothsayer when it does, so his answer is already sitting right there on his tongue when Kurosaki opens his stupid mouth right there, still across from him on his own starched white bed in the Med Bay, pressing the icepack to his neck once more.

“I think you should find another copilot,” Kurosaki announces, voice firm, as unwavering as his gaze as it finally swings back to Grimmjow, blistering in its intensity.

“No.”

And Kurosaki’s face screws up, the way it always does, twists with frustration and protectiveness and selflessness. But it really is that simple.

“You didn’t even think about it,” Kurosaki seethes, like he genuinely believed that Grimmjow was going to for even one second.

Grimmjow’s already made up his mind. Frankly, he’d made up his mind the moment he’d given Kurosaki’s name to the Marshal. For Grimmjow, it will be Kurosaki or no one. He would rather never get the chance to drift again than allow anyone else into his head.

“There’s really nothing to think about,” he states, giving Kurosaki an exasperated look. And he means it, more than he thinks he’s ever meant anything before. “It’s you, it’s only you for me.”

It should feel like a declaration, because it sort of is. The kind that could tilt a world onto a different axis from the gravity of it. The way Kurosaki stares at him after he says it, wide-eyed and a little slack jawed, makes it seem like an avowal, an oath, a ‘til-death-do-us-part. And it is. 

It is.

**~**

“How do you feel about poetry?” Kurosaki asks the same night as they both crawl into their bunks, bone tired and wired and holding on to their separate sanities by a thread.

Grimmjow hesitates, pointing his toes under the scratchy wool blanket in a luxurious calf stretch. “Should I have feelings about poetry?” 

Kurosaki doesn’t immediately answer with words, merely scoffs as though it’s the stupidest question he’s ever heard. “Of course you should,” he remarks like the weirdly elitist bastard he is.

And then he’s rummaging around beneath what can only be his pillow and Grimmjow has the sudden overwhelming feeling that he wants to stand on the edge of the Earth and scream. That he wants to swim to the bottom of the Breach and bellow the sudden well of _bullshit_ that’s sprung up in his chest. Kurosaki, orange and red and black and white and _golden,_ with a soldering iron in one hand and a copy of Dostoevsky in the other. Kurosaki who fought dirty, who didn’t back down, who was stupidly bright and unfairly wise. Kurosaki with a dead _brother,_ a dead _copilot_ , a dead _soulmate_ , trapped in his head, still protecting him like a snarling dog, loyal unto the end. Kurosaki who had been in Grimmjow’s head _twice_ now and still wanted to know all the seemingly arbitrary details about who he was. And Grimmjow has never been good with words, never been able to articulate all that well what he’s feeling and _why._

“ _There are times when love is so complicated it circles_ _like chimney swifts unable to decide where to land. There are endings so sad their shadows scuff the dirt…_ ” Grimmjow presses his head even farther into his fuck-awful pillow, staring wide-eyed at the dimly lit concrete wall a few feet away, heart thrashing in his chest like a caged animal. “ _There are endings so sad I want the morning light to scourge the fields. Endings that are only what the river dreams when it dries up. Endings that are constant echoes._ ”

This was _everything_ he’d been waiting for, and _nothing_ he’d ever asked for. It was _everything_ he thought he’d never get to have, not _him,_ not in this life, not after his sisters. People like him didn’t get what they _wanted_ , what they’d hoped for, what they allowed themselves to dream about in the quiet recesses of their mind.

“ _There are times_ _when I feel you might be searching for me, when I can read what is written on the far sides of stars. I'm nearly out of time. My heart is a dragonfly. I'll have to settle for this, standing under a waterfall of words you never said_ ,” Kurosaki continues, voice like a bolt of sunlight through snow clouds, pure apricity. “ _There are times like this_ _when no ending appears, times when I am so inconsolably happy_ …”

It should feel like the universe going supernova, as though it’s collapsing in on itself only to blow outwards into a trillion shards of stardust and atoms. Instead, it feels as quiet and small as all the spaces they now share. Grimmjow feels like the darkness of their bedroom, like Kurosaki has walked right in, bringing the light with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The referenced literature is III-II 21-25 of Shakespeare's ' _Romeo and Juliet_ ' and stanzas five and six of Richard Jackson's poem ' _Alternate Endings_ '.
> 
> You can find me on Twitter acting a fool on the regular [here](https://mobile.twitter.com/sayhitoforeverr)  
> Join the GrimmIchi Discord [here!](https://discord.gg/u4TGnAkv)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first half of a precisely timed Christmas gift for Pandelion, the idea machine of my little writer dreams. Much love to you, darling 🖤

Grimmjow is lying belly up on the mats of the Combat Room floor, staring up at the pipes that crisscross the high ceiling, listening to Yoruichi rearrange the scattered collection of shinai and bokken from the day’s cadet training. Kurosaki had left in a rush that morning, having received some form of impromptu summons from Kisuke Urahara. The two of them had said little to each other after waking, the strangeness for both of them still present, feeling like the guest in their own room. It didn’t really matter though; they had a meeting with the Marshal in only a few hours regarding their second botched drift attempt and the scheduling of a potential third one. Grimmjow would be infinitely more hung up on the ‘potential’ portion of that statement if his mind wasn’t otherwise occupied. 

Full up of Kurosaki’s echoing, soft voice that had read until Grimmjow had slipped off to a nearly dreamless sleep. He felt something almost resembling _rested_ today, body humming with energy and a foreign sort of anxiety. A strain he wasn’t familiar with, the tightness he was so accustomed to feeling in his chest seemed to be in his throat instead. A slow suffocation. Like no deep breath he took was enough air. 

He’d come all the way down to the Combat Room looking for a fight. Something to clear his head, something to tether him a little better because it felt like someone had let a massive amount of slack into his leash somehow. But Yoruichi is pointedly ignoring him, feigning being busy first with the cadets and then with cleaning up after them, something she’d usually grumble her way through. Grimmjow doesn’t know what kind of game she thinks she’s playing, isn’t sure where she thinks he wronged her enough to give him the cold shoulder. He is sure that he can checkmate her in a single sentence though. 

“He read me poetry last night,” Grimmjow confesses to the ceiling, working real hard not to smile as he says it because it feels _stupid._ It _is_ stupid, it shouldn’t be a big deal, probably isn’t, and yet. “Out loud.” 

The clattering of wooden fighting implements stops immediately, and he rolls his head on the mat to look over at Yoruichi. She’s staring at him, open-mouthed with a look of absolute, insane glee on her face. It’s growing too, morphing less from shellshock and more into an expression of sheer fuckery that only she could manage. 

“That is… _that’s so gay_ ,” she murmurs reverently, a ferocious grin cracking her beautiful face nearly in half. 

“Oh, fuck off,” he snaps back on instinct, looking away from her quickly, hoping the rush of heat to his face isn’t showing. 

“So, when’s the wedding?” she asks cheekily, and Grimmjow doesn’t need to be looking at her to know she’s still grinning like evil incarnate. 

“I will beat you to death and I’ll make it look like an accident,” he warns, but she’s already cackling, the armful of wooden weapons rattling against the wall as she props them up where they belong. 

He’s got his eyes squeezed shut, beginning to wonder just how worth it being friends with her really was, when he hears her bare feet pad across the mats. She drops down beside him with a soft huff and makes quick work of slamming her head down onto his chest with more force than strictly necessary. He wheezes a little, opening his eyes as she stretches her legs out before groping for the hand that isn’t tucked behind and supporting his head. She plops it down on her own sweaty mess of purple hair and Grimmjow is too desensitized to protest anymore, just rubs her scalp in slow circles. 

“You wanna talk about it?” she asks gently after a few minutes of Grimmjow driving his blunt fingernails through her hair this way and that. 

It’s a painfully unspecific question, on purpose probably, to give him the space to get whatever he needs to off his chest. He considers it for a moment, tries to find the right way to articulate it. Yoruichi never knew Nel and Tier, never knew Grimmjow as he was before, only knows the cobbled together remnant he is now. A ghost himself in all the ways he shouldn’t be, in ways in which sometimes it feels like all his memories, all his dreams, belong to someone else. As if he’s just a gross spectator to the life of someone he used to know. He wonders if Kurosaki ever feels this way, like an imposter in his own fucking skin. As if he could crawl out of it, separate from all the things that shackled him. 

“Do you remember, couple weeks ago, you said that life was about _who_ you’d bleed for?” he says, swallowing a little thickly around the memory of lying in bed, holding his scabbed over finger up to stare at it. 

“I remember,” she murmurs. 

“I wanted so fuckin’ badly to tell you to eat shit because I’m so… _tired_ of bleeding,” he admits in a rush and he can feel Yoruichi’s breath hitch a little. “I feel— like everything I’ve ever touched is stained red, and _for what_?” 

He realizes he’s probably scrubbing her head a little too hard and draws in a slow breath through his nose. She stays quiet, both of them staring up at the ceiling, still perpendicular on the floor. Grimmjow closes his eyes and takes another deep breath, the cold air blasting through the vents finally getting to him as goosebumps raise on his exposed arms. 

“I thought after them, after Nel and Tier, that I would have no one,” he confides haltingly, hates the stupid burning in the back of his throat. “And I don’t… just mean that in the context of copilots.” 

“Grimm—” 

He plows right over her, needing to get it out now before he swallows it all back down again instead. “And I thought you were taking pity on me at first. Sad, broken asshole with only ghosts for company.” His voice shakes a little and he scrunches his face up, unseen, pissed at himself. “I mean this in the least cringey fucking way possible, I really thought no one would ever give a shit again.” 

“I give a shit,” Yoruichi blurts out in the most indignant, affronted tone he’s probably ever heard. He moves his hand from her hair to her face, puts his whole palm over it until she splutters and reaches to pry his fingers away. 

“Shut _up,_ I ain’t done.” Only he sort of is, steam running out just like that. He forces himself to press on anyway, the way he always has, flirting with the exhaustion of pushing himself too far. “It… _feels_ like being _rewarded_ for all the shit that’s slipped through my fingers somehow. I’m just not sure if I deserve it yet.” 

Silence, agonizing in the way Grimmjow knows that she can probably feel how hard his heart is thudding. Vulnerability had never been in his wheelhouse, and therapy really hadn’t done much to help that despite Dr. Unohana’s best efforts. It still felt like weakness somehow, exposure to the elements, like he was just welcoming even more things to come and gnaw on his already gnarled bones. Grimmjow’s emotional processing skills pre-therapy had consisted of bottling his rage until he literally blew a gasket. There were probably so many fucking write-ups in his PPDC file for gross misconduct, or however the hell body slamming someone to a concrete floor to wail on their face got written up as. Now at least he knew how to verbalize a little of it. 

But there was something still nagging at him, the same shard of ice cold almost hysteria that had never melted since he’d lost Tier and Nel. Something he’d only ever told Dr. Unohana while in the grips of an absolute breakdown, the feeling of it like something sharp wedged up under his heart, the point slowly driving forward with every beat he didn’t think he deserved. It was another thing he couldn’t help but wonder about Kurosaki, if he’d ever felt the same, had ever hoped for the same fuck awful things. 

“I used to wish that we’d all gone together,” he whispers, has to squeeze his eyes tighter against the saboteur bloom of emergency-light red on the back of his eyelids that threatens to bring with it the memory of two lifeless bodies. “I was so fucking _angry_ , it’s unfair. Still— I, most days.” 

Yoruichi sits up a little at that, letting his hand slide off until it’s flops back onto his chest. He looks up at her and a spear of guilt harpoons him in the guts as he sees her wet eyes, at the tears wavering on her waterline. Her face is all twisted up in a frown, nostrils flared, and it’s all undermined only a lot by the sex hair she’s sporting now, courtesy of Grimmjow’s fingers. 

“Do you still feel like that?” she asks and her voice cracks, horrible and endearing, staring down at him as if she can’t decide if she’s gonna choke him out via the tightest hug ever or just palm strike his nose into the back of his brain and end it quickly. 

Grimmjow stares at her, at the tear that ultimately betrays her and drips down her dark cheek, striking the mat with a wet plop. He thinks of her snarl when he'd tried to come down here just after arriving in Tokyo. He thinks of all the nights outside on the platform where they'd sit, huddled against the sea breeze and the chill of the air. Of all the candy and the check-ups and the sibling-like rivalry. He thinks of Dr. Unohana’s patience, her unflinching demeanor as Grimmjow cracked his own sternum apart and spilled his guts on her desk every session. The Marshal's generosity, the kindness of all the nurses and doctors in the Med Bay, the still starstruck cadets he spent time with. He thinks of Kurosaki last, of him spitting blood at Grimmjow's feet, of his muted voice echoing in the darkness, of the way he managed to reach out through the veil of his own trauma and through all of Grimmjow's too, of his insufferable smirk and self-assured gaze. 

“Less every day.”

**~**

Kurosaki has been staring at the backpack he has hanging on the wall hook for the better part of the evening while Grimmjow tries to in vain to both ignore him and muddle his way through the universe’s shittiest novel that he plucked out of Kurosaki’s box. Not only is the language more incomprehensible than Shakespeare, but it’s boring as all fuck. It’s the only distraction technique available to him in their small, shared room that isn’t a shower, and he’s already had one. Kurosaki is respectful enough that if Grimmjow _looks_ preoccupied, he won’t prod for attention. But he’s staring at the dusty backpack with the single-minded attention that children give to something they want. 

It’s— he’s turning pages at what he hopes sounds like a reasonable pace, but he’s definitely not reading anymore. Hasn’t been for at least half an hour now, using the book as a way to hide a majority of his face as he has a silent existential crisis about what can only be imminent. Kurosaki will want to know what’s in the backpack, if his freakish, unblinking stare down with the god damn thing is anything to go by. And Grimmjow could tell him off and he’d probably listen, but secrets weren’t exactly conducive to their day jobs. Grimmjow didn’t really _want_ to keep secrets anyway. Which meant the backpack full of photographic evidence of him in his greenhorn years of being a Jaeger pilot, of his life in Lima, in Los Angeles, of _his sisters_ in all the undying majesty that only photographs could contain, is an impending reality. 

All the evidence of Grimmjow before he was… well whatever and whoever the fuck he is now. There are probably photos in there of him _smiling._ Has Kurosaki ever even seen him smile? When was the last time he even smiled? When was the last time he even smiled and _meant it_? Those photos, the life they showed, the one he no longer had, the one he could never have back, they were as revealing as a drift. And it's one thing to have Tier and Nel, the apparitions that they are in the recesses of his mind, the way he wants to remember them. It's another thing to have to see them as they _were._

Five more minutes is all he can bear, watching Kurosaki wander to the fridge where he’s absolutely committing the cardinal sin of sipping at Grimmjow’s orange juice, before he cracks. 

“It’s full of photographs,” he blurts out, and Kurosaki’s head whips around so fast Grimmjow’s shocked he doesn’t immediately wrench his neck. 

Kurosaki doesn’t even have the dignity to look sheepish about being caught essentially eye-fucking Grimmjow’s belongings, just darts another glance at it. “What kind of photos?” 

Still keeping the book up in front of most of his face, Grimmjow hauls in a fortifying but audible deep breath. He closes the book, holding it between both of his hands like a weirdo, and taps the edge of it against his chin. He stares at it too, takes in the very visible layer of dust that’s settled on the black fabric, the dull shine of the zippers, the way the handle of it is stretched nearly to tearing from hanging for too long. Grimmjow sits up from the back-aching slouch he’s been in and sets the book beside him on the bed. 

“Photos of old Shatterdomes I’ve been stationed at. Of me and my sisters,” he finishes quietly, and Kurosaki’s eyes are like heat-seeking missiles the way they target-lock onto him. He just stares at Grimmjow like that for longer than socially acceptable, owlish and unblinking. 

“Can I— can I look at them?” Kurosaki asks hesitantly and Grimmjow’s heart gives one painful thud in his chest as the imminency arrives quite suddenly. 

“Sure,” Grimmjow acquiesces, swallowing down a throatful of nostalgia, anxiety, and some kind of shitty self-awareness. 

The orange juice is back in the fridge before the word is even completely out of his mouth, Kurosaki kicking the door of it closed as he beelines for the backpack. With careful fingers, as if he’s handling some kind of fragile artifact and not a ratty backpack, he grasps it with two hands and lifts it from the hook. He meanders over towards the bed and Grimmjow sucks a breath in through his teeth as Kurosaki ducks his head and puts a knee on Grimmjow’s own bunk, placing the backpack between them. Grimmjow scrambles to fold his legs in to give him space as he all but crawls across the mattress, and that’s doing fuck-all for how wired he already feels.

Carefully, he unzips the backpack and Grimmjow holds his breath like the plague is trapped in there and he doesn’t want to inhale it. Kurosaki withdraws the first rubber-banded stack of photographs and sets it on the bed. One after the other until the backpack is empty and Grimmjow’s entire fucking life is piled on the bed like a bad joke. He’s got a stack clutched in both hands as he glances up at Grimmjow as if for a last second confirmation that this was all _okay_ somehow. But Grimmjow is too busy staring at the photo atop the pile as he unwinds the rubber band.

“Tier,” Kurosaki whispers, tapping the shoulder of his older sister on the right side and something so close to mania comes crawling up Grimmjow’s throat, he wants to look away before it escapes him but can’t. Transfixed by the image of Tier’s blond hair pushed back by the dark sunglasses atop her ahead, tan face sporting her trademark smirk, long fingers clutching a can of Peruvian beer. Behind her is some beach in Lima, white sands all but glowing in the too bright sun, the clear blue water a thin line just below the sky. Kurosaki’s finger moves to the other side of the photo and taps the shoulder of his younger sister next. “Nel,” he continues, and Grimmjow’s eyes shift to her green hair pulled into a ponytail atop her head, lips spread in a cheesy grin so big that her eyes are closed, chucking up a peace sign.

Grimmjow drops his chin to his chest and fights the unexpected burning in the back of his eyes. He stares down at his hands lying uselessly in his lap and grits his teeth so hard something grinds in his jaw. Fucking _shit_ , he thinks. He’d always expected that looking at these photos would feel like getting steamrolled and that still had done shit to prepare him for it. He takes a long, slow breath in through his nose and swallows down the strangling sensation in his throat.

“Lima, just after we transferred,” he murmurs only after he feels like he’s pulled himself together a fraction.

He can see Kurosaki nod out of the corner of his eye, tucking the photo to the back of the stack and looking to the next one. This one is of the inside of the Shatterdome and it’s nothing special to look at it considering they all look the same. Half cut off on the left side is the shadowed visage of Tres Espadas in her bay. They don’t speak much as they flip through the photos and the first stack is mostly stupid shots of places as opposed to people, all of beaches and the city and the Shatterdome. The only photo in there of anyone seems to have been that first one and Grimmjow tries to steel himself for all the ones he knows are coming. Kurosaki reaches for the next stack, undoes it carefully, and stares at the shot of Tier arm wrestling one of the Lima J-tech officers, in the very moment she was driving his hand down to the table, savage satisfaction etched in every sharp angle of her face as the people gathered around are in various stages of cheering. Grimmjow can’t help but smile a little at that memory, even as Kurosaki shuffles through a few more beach photos clearly taken by Nel, until the next one is of Grimmjow himself.

He startles Grimmjow a little as he breaks the silence of the room and sucks in a sharp breath, loud enough that Grimmjow jerks his head up to look at him. Eyes unnecessarily wide, flitting all over the photo and it’s not… it’s nothing to write home about. It’s just Grimmjow from the side, in his white and black-lined Drivesuit, no helmet, hair a fucking mess, looking off at something not in the shot. He’s not even smiling, just staring as though someone has just asked him a question. Whatever Kurosaki is seeing, he isn’t.

“You look so… _young,_ ” Kurosaki stammers out, and he still hasn’t looked away from the photo.

Heat prickles up Grimmjow’s neck a little and he reaches over, without really thinking, to swipe the photo away and forcibly shove it to the bottom of Kurosaki’s fingers. The next one is literally no better though. It’s Grimmjow with his arm slung around Tier’s shoulders, middle finger pointing down, and she’s doubled over laughing at something. One half of Grimmjow’s face is all scrunched up in a wink, upper lip curled back, tongue out, and it’s an old enough photo that he’s still got a douchey undercut.

Kurosaki just starts to fuckin’ laugh like it’s the funniest shit he’s ever seen. “Oh, so some things really don’t change then,” is all he says, as if that makes any sense.

It goes on like that, the old ache loosing in Grimmjow’s chest with every photo of his sisters that crops up. In their room, in Tres Espadas’ Bay, in the Conn Pod, bars, beaches, random city streets. A collection of old faces also haunt the photographs; old J-tech teams, Fightmasters, Marshals, other pilots, some dead and others now retired. It’s a literal trip down memory lane, and there are even photographs in there that Grimmjow has completely forgotten about, memories that return as he looks through.

“What about your family?” Kurosaki asks at one point as they near the bottom of the last stack.

“They’re all dead now. Didn’t have parents, just my sisters,” Grimmjow states simply, and nothing particularly hollow or empty echoes in his chest at the words this time. “But you, you have a whole fuckin’ family, the works.” 

“Yeah,” Kurosaki intones, voice sounding as hollow as Grimmjow is so accustomed to feeling. He’s staring down at a photo of all three of them, Grimmjow, Tier, and Nel standing side by side, the towering figure of Tres Espada behind them. It looks like some kind of propaganda photo, standing there with their Drivesuits on, helmets tucked under their arms, the Jaeger a hulk of metal behind them. It had been just after they’d arrived in Lima, still fresh faced and bright eyed.

“And you still gave it all up to do _this._ That’s some hero shit.”

The corner of Kurosaki’s mouth quirks up a little in an empty smile. “That’s what they tell me.”

Grimmjow doesn’t know what to say, has only seen flashes of Kurosaki’s family in both of their failed drifts. How many times have people said that to him too though? That he was a hero, that he was brave for all he’s done, for all he’s sacrificed. How many times have people said that to Kurosaki? All the people that had said it with no malicious intentions, just a complete unawareness of what that praise felt like. A _sham_ , a tiny bandaid slapped over a gaping, necrotic wound.

Kurosaki holds up a photo of a narrow river with a bridge crossing it, a white-stone church just behind, the imposing line of the Reiter Alpe in the background. Picturesque trees gone red and orange with the fall temperatures line the river’s shore and the sky is a clear, cloudless blue. There isn’t a single person in the photograph, just the landscape. A nostalgic sort of soft pang resonates in Grimmjow’s chest as he stares at it. 

“This is beautiful, where is it?” 

He turns the photo back around after Grimmjow has gotten a good look at it. He clears his throat a little as Kurosaki continues to marvel at it. “That’s, uh, my hometown. In southeast Germany.” 

His head whips up for the umpteenth time and Grimmjow narrows his eyes a little at the scrutiny. “You’re German?” 

“What part of _Jaegerjaquez_ doesn’t give that away?” he deadpans, grinning a little as Kurosaki scoffs, rolling his eyes. “I grew up in that church actually,” Grimmjow mentions as casually as he can, knowing the reaction he usually receives. He gets it, he really does. Blue-haired, permanently angry asshole, now covered in scars, and bags under his eyes so heavy and dark he should hire a bellhop fulltime. It’s not like he gives off the religious vibe either. 

True to form, Kurosaki balks at him, eyes bugging in his head a little, gaze dropping down to Grimmjow’s dog tags as if he’s expecting to find a cross hanging there. “So, you’re religious then?” 

He gives Kurosaki the absolute blandest look he can manage. “I fight monsters the size of mountains that crawl through an interdimensional crack in the crust of our planet on a regular basis. _No_. God can eat my whole ass.” 

And Kurosaki laughs so hard he snorts, nearly doubling over on the bed, sending a few stray photographs fluttering to the floor. He laughs hard enough that it even makes Grimmjow grin, a warmth blooming within his ribs, small and fragile. The rush of it is too much to quash this time, and Grimmjow has been doomed for a while. Just utterly fucked, really. But it’s enough, he thinks, to hold it to his chest like a sputtering candle, hand cupped around it, shielding the flame from the rest of the world.

**~**

Grimmjow has never met Kisuke Urahara before. Only heard things, terrible, gross, awful fucking things from Yoruichi of course. And the occasional reverent whisper that he’s brilliant, or whatever. So, the bar of his expectations is set at tripping height, perfectly reasonable he thinks. They’ve got him and Kurosaki seated at the conference table in LOCCENT again, the Marshal, Hirako, and the mad scientist himself at the other end. Kurosaki seems less nervous this time around, his leg isn’t bouncing and he’s paying attention far better than Grimmjow is, who seems to have absorbed all the anxiety via osmosis or something.

“We’ve designed a sort of storage space, so to speak,” Kisuke is saying, gesticulating what amounts to a large, haphazard rectangular shape. “The essential function of which, once in a Drift, would be a space where Kurosaki-san could almost _put_ his brother. Therein, it becomes an operable space for Shiro to participate from, as he is an active remnant.”

“Like a third pilot,” Grimmjow whispers, and he’s staring at this unhinged scientist in awe, can’t help himself. What the hell did Yoruichi and this brainiac even have in common? 

Beside him, Kurosaki sits back in his chair hard enough that the back of it rattles, focused gaze going glassy. Grimmjow glances at him, and watches his throat bob as he swallows hard, brows furrowing as he continues to stare off. It’s hard not to wonder if Shiro is talking to him now, what he could be saying.

“Yes!” Kisuke exclaims excitedly as he looks to Grimmjow, a twinkle in his thunderstorm-grey eyes. “I was thinking of Tres Espadas and how we could fundamentally build a third rig without really building one. This is what we’ve managed to come up with it.”

The Marshal cuts in at the moment, eyeing Kurosaki and deciding an iota of levelheadedness needs to be brought back. “His role would mirror that of Nelliel’s, allowing the two of you to bear the physical weight and controls of piloting.”

“This is highly experimental!” Kisuke says in a too-cheery tone for the statement he’s just made and Grimmjow has to lean on his elbow and put his fist over his mouth to hide his smile as the Marshal rolls his only eye. “Making the triple pilot rig was already a challenge. We cannot guarantee the effectiveness of this as it’s never been attempted before.”

“It’s safe though, right?” Kurosaki finally speaks up, voice a bit of a croak as he narrows his eyes at his old boss.

Kisuke Urahara blinks at him, head cocked like a curious dog, before smiling. “You will likely not be able to hear or speak with him, but he’ll be there.” Beside him, Kurosaki groans as if that complete fucking sidestep of an answer is something he’s all too used to.

“If you can maintain the drift, we intend to leave you in there until the alignment fails or you reach a point of exhaustion,” the Marshal states in a tone that brokers no disagreement, authoritative and final. Even the offensively pink kimono draped about his shoulders and the tiny teacup in front of him do nothing to dampen the severity of that assertion.

And that’s— _holy shit._ That’s a tall order for two screw ups that had yet to succeed. Grimmjow can feel Kurosaki staring at him out of the corner of his eye, like he’s waiting for _something._ For Grimmjow to say something, protest, declare how fucking insane this all is, because it probably falls under a violation of the Geneva Conventions of old. He moves his mouth away from his hand, no longer smiling, and looks at his copilot. He hopes Kurosaki reads all the bullshit he doesn’t dare say in his eyes. That they can do it, _they can fucking do it_ , because they were compatible, because Kurosaki could make him look at pictures of his dead sisters and old life for four hours when he’d never been able to do that alone, because he was stronger than Shiro, they both were. They just needed to prove it.

“Third time’s the charm and all that, gentleman.”

**~**

Neither of them sleep. Kurosaki reads to himself most the night, alternating between crushing his pillow down over his face like he can smother himself into some form of slumber, and reading some more. Grimmjow showers not once but twice, working himself into a sweat with push-ups until his arms go numb. The second shower is just so he can stand under the spray and zone out without looking like an utter fucking headcase. No one says a damn thing when they both roll in to get suited up the next morning looking like a couple of zombies, operating on sheer willpower and an entire pot of coffee each, strong enough to kill God. Grimmjow doesn’t think he’ll ever get over watching Kurosaki dump scoop after scoop of grounds into the percolator.

Lo and behold, there it is, nestled between their rigs like some kind of out of place end table. Sleek and polished black until the surface of it is practically a mirror, the box in which Shiro Kurosaki could basically pilot from feels like not a single but an entire fucking herd of elephants in the room. He and Kurosaki stand shoulder to shoulder and stare, watching a little red light in the furthermost left corner blink softly.

“It’s gonna be fine,” he says to Kurosaki, the first thing either of them has said to the other since yesterday. And damn if he doesn’t sound far surer of that statement than he feels. The look he receives is all but trademark: one raised eyebrow, lips all twisted into a frown, eyes that call him stupid in every language he doesn’t speak. “The worst we do is fuck it up. Again.”

They crisscross each other to reach their respective sides and Grimmjow repeats the very thing back to himself like a mantra as he bolts into the floor.

“We’ve got this,” Kurosaki ventures in agreement eventually, as techs secure all the hoses and wires to the back of their Drivesuits.

“No head games this time.”

“Don’t talk about my drain bramage like that,” he says with false outrage.

Grimmjow snorts, even as Hirako’s grating voice filters in through their helmets to bid them good morning and begin booting up. At the sound of the final permission of the Marshal, Grimmjow closes his eyes, breathes in relay gel-scented air and breathes out conviction. The neural handshake rips through him, a flurry of blue, of memories and moments that feel so much like the photographs from yesterday. He tries so hard to be invisible, to let them all rush passed him. It’s a little jarring, like getting body slammed, as they settle and stabilize, the blue blinding his vision melting away little by little until he’s looking at the inside of the simulation Conn Pod again.

And it’s working, _it’s working._ The drift feels fucking _stable,_ tightly controlled, but more stable than the previous two ever did. There is a wall though, Grimmjow can feel it. A dam that Kurosaki seems to have built between them that he as a tenuous at best grip on. Still, he is echoing the same sentiments back, staring at his armored hands as though he can actually see them and Grimmjow does the same. Those are absolutely his semi-glowing hands he’s seeing and not from within any kind of RABIT and the thrill of the small victory that goes through him leaks out into the drift a little. He doesn’t even need to look, he can feel it, as Kurosaki grins, flexing his fingers a little before looking over at Grimmjow.

“Lining up nicely, boys,” Hirako sing-songs to both of them, and Grimmjow isn’t even irritated by it.

He lifts his arms a little, tests the weight of the rig for the first time in any of their drift attempts. He pokes at Kurosaki and Kurosaki pokes back, and Grimmjow wants to laugh at the sheer impossibility of it. Kurosaki is _warm,_ he’s warm and he feels like the sweet salt taste of summer, like sweating pavements and alleyways and soccer games in the street. He feels like the cool air at the top of a sloping, residential hill overlooking the city at night, like the seaside and the snow and the muddy trenches of war. He feels like iron and blood and fear, hope and light, and _home._

Nothing breaks, no one screams, they maintain.

“Okay,” Kurosaki breathes out after a few minutes, as Grimmjow checks the main control panel and glances down at the black box to check for the blinking red light. It’s so fucking weird because he can kind of feel it, like a blank in the back of his head, a blind spot where something should be. “We— I’m gonna give this a go.”

He looks to Grimmjow who nods, hauling in a deep, relay-gel heavy breath and bracing himself. The wall between them dissolves in a faux blast of frigid air, and the ripple that goes through their almost stable drift feels like dropping an entire mountain into a lake. The tsunami sized wave that rises is daunting, but Grimmjow is fucking bulletproof, unshakeable. He squares his shoulders and snarls as he leans into it.

 _“C’mon, you fucker!”_ he all but bellows into their headspace, Shiro’s presence feeling like a freight train hurtling right towards him. _“I’ve got a couple demons of my own I’d like you to shake hands with.”_

It’s not the same, he knows that. They’re just ghosts, shades, his memories of how they were. It’s hard to feel bad though when he swears he can see the outline of the two of them, equally tall and broad shouldered, standing like veteran, silent sentries at the start of a battle. And _oh, how he misses them._ But they’re more than enough in that instance. Lying in wait like a riptide, the moment Shiro moves in too close, they pull him under. And Grimmjow wants to feel bad, he does, the way Shiro’s overprotective screech gets smothered. The calm returns not a moment later, like nothing had just been threatening to overtake them both again. He waits, they both do, they all do, but the calm reigns.

A whole swell of emotion washes out of Grimmjow in a crashing wave; pride, elation, nostalgia, adoration, too many to name. He gives himself a second to revel in it before attempting to restrain himself again, ignoring the sound of soft surprise that Kurosaki makes, assuming he’s just adjusting to the change in their headspace. Grimmjow prods a little at the once blank blind spot in the back of his head, now a muddied mix of white and black and gold all swirled together like liquid marble. It burbles back, the sensation of it making the hair on the back of his neck stand up in the best way possible. The insane scientist was right; he can’t hear or speak to Shiro, but he can absolutely feel him. There’s no hostility that he can sense anymore in the space in the back of his mind, which is an overwhelming relief. It’s not unlike Kurosaki’s either, just with a little more crackling, savage energy, a dynamic presence.

“Neural handshake strong and holding,” Hirako hums, and Grimmjow swears that even he sounds a little impressed.

“Let’s run through the interface system, gentleman,” Marshal Kyouraku says into the mic and there’s no resistance when Grimmjow’s reaches up to the control panel. _Just be cool_ , he thinks to himself. _Don’t fuck this one up now._ In some corner of his head, and it’s hard to say _which one_ of the two, someone is laughing at him.

As they run each system, checking and familiarizing themselves as they would in any real pre-mission check, Shiro seems to shine a little brighter, grow a little stronger. As though Kurosaki is still slowly feeding his consciousness into the black box, bit by bit. And it’s all well and good, Grimmjow adjusts as best he can, like taking a step back to give more space. They’re getting ready to run through the simulation of all the weapons that the Frankenstein Jaeger has been equipped with, and Grimmjow can _feel_ how giddy Kurosaki is for him to finally see what he’s worked so hard on, _the metal glove_ he thinks with a thrill, when it starts up.

Grimmjow’s chest begins to burn a little. A dull throb that’s growing stronger. And it’s neither the time nor the fucking place for him to have a panic attack, not when everything is going so well, not when there’s practically nothing to worry about. But he’s not even sure it is one. They’re usually so cold, like swallowing ice, but this is _hot,_ a scalding sensation climbing up to scorching. He tries to shake it off, bury it in his own headspace, but he can feel Kurosaki’s hesitation and knows he’s sensed whatever is happening too.

“You need a second?” Kurosaki asks jokingly, but there’s an edge of concern in it. Grimmjow frowns a little and stares at the visual field where the system is overlaying a shitty, rendered photograph of Seattle, Washington as it once was.

“No,” he says slowly, swears he can feel what could only be the approximation of Shiro’s shoulder bump companionably against his own, checking in on him. He doesn’t, nothing is wrong, he just feels... weird. But, the whole situation is fucking weird, so a mild discomfort feels almost par the course. “Think I’m good.”

“Your heart rate is climbing a little, Ichigo,” Hirako interrupts and Grimmjow looks over at him in confusion. He’s staring at the rendering of the now nonexistent Space Needle, and Grimmjow can feel him frowning. He can’t feel whatever is causing a rise in blood pressure though, can’t sense any anxiety at all.

In typical fashion, it takes Grimmjow too long to realize what’s _really_ happening. It takes him until his right cheek starts to burn to figure it out.

“Don’t—” he begins to say aloud, but it’s too little too late.

It slams through both of them with all the power and reverberation of a gong strike. The poor depiction of Seattle blinks away and the Conn Pod plunges into complete darkness. The gasp that comes out of Kurosaki’s mouth, echoing in Grimmjow’s helmet through his comm piece, sounds like a god damn death rattle. Like someone has shoved their hand into his chest and wrenched the noise out of him.

The whine of the emergency power alarm is deafening as it blares to life and Grimmjow scrambles to reel everything back in. But there’s _nothing_ , he’s not the one causing it, not this time. Red light pulses through the dark Conn Pod and illuminates the black water that’s churning around him, already up to mid-thigh. He staggers a little, unattached from the rig though he’s not sure if and when he actually disengaged or not, as a wave laps in and he takes in his surroundings as fast as he can. A shower of sparks rains down over his head as he sees that the entire left side of the Conn Pod has been ripped away, the blood-red sunset visible at the horizon’s edge of the ocean. When he looks to the right, there are _two_ rigs, not one, and they’re both _empty._

Grimmjow spits out a few choice curse words that would have had any nun cracking the nearest flat object across his ass. And somehow, over the sound of the alarm, over the rush of the ocean water flooding in, over the screeching of the alien behemoth just outside, Grimmjow can hear it as Kurosaki finds _the corner._

No grief is equal, he knows this. It’s one thing to see your copilot, your sibling, your soulmate bloodied and slumped in their rig, to feel them die, to have their consciousness seared into your own for the rest of time. It’s another to have to wade through human and Kaiju bloodied waters to find the bodies of the only people that have ever mattered to you and realize what has happened. Realize that _something is wrong, very wrong, parts are missing, things are gone and you can’t find where they’ve floated off to, and it’s much too late for it to matter._

Like an animal in agony, the howl that Kurosaki lets out when he finds them hurts Grimmjow worse than having his face gouged apart, worse than having the polycarbonate of his Drivesuit cauterized into his fresh, open wound, worse than feeling like his arm has been ripped off. The entire immobilized Jaeger shakes as the Kaiju just beyond them swats at the mech a little. Grimmjow puts his arms out to stabilize himself, just as he had only a year ago, and wades forward, ducking around the destroyed, arcing rigs just as he’d had to do before.

Kurosaki is hunched over in the water, one arm cast out overtop something and Grimmjow looks _only_ at the back of _Kurosaki’s_ helmeted head and not at what — at _who_ — he’s holding onto. The water is darker, more viscous around them as the red light continues to flash. And the photographs were _nothing_ in comparison to this. He’d let Shiro turn him into the vegetable he’d threatened to a thousand times over instead of this. Grimmjow doesn’t look down, _he won’t._ He already knows what’s there. He’s already had to live it, and relive it again and again and _again_ in his own nightmares. And even if, in some parallel fucking universe he didn’t know, the sound of Kurosaki’s broken sobbing would give it all away. Grimmjow knows you’re not supposed to jar someone out of a RABIT they’re chasing, sat through all the neurological seminars once upon a time. But he’s not about to allow what’s unfolding in front of him to keep going.

Grimmjow manages to get his arms hooked under Kurosaki’s, head turned to the side to stare out the decimated visual field and not _down_ , and grits his teeth as he hauls his copilot and all fifty pounds of his Drivesuit armor back. Kurosaki _screams._ He screams and he thrashes, resisting as Grimmjow tries to heave both of them back through the memory of now waist-deep water.

“No, _no!_ Fucking let go of me!” he shrieks over the din of the alarm, and Grimmjow’s grip on his wet armor slips a little as he struggles to hold on. “They’re still—”

“ _They’re already gone,_ ” Grimmjow shouts, voice breaking.

Because they are, _they are, and there’s no point in holding onto their bodies so they don’t float away, reaching for hands to hold onto, hands that aren’t there anymore, they’re gone, why are they gone, where have they gone?_ And it’s impossible not to catch sight of light hair floating atop the water as the lights flare again. Grimmjow squeezes his eyes shut against it all, pulls Kurosaki to his chest, and pushes off hard from the floor.

There’s a pop of pressure in his nose and a warm gush down his lips and into his mouth. His own fucking RABIT, and he’s not even the one stuck in it. The RABIT of the worst injuries of his young life and he still has to taste his own blood. Poetic really, he thinks, as he hits the water backwards and goes under, still holding Kurosaki to him, dragging him down as he goes. And it’s enough, _just enough,_ because the deafening noise cuts off immediately and everything blacks out.

**~**

By the time Grimmjow comes to in the Med Bay, they’ve already drawn blood and are pumping a bag of fluids into him. They get him upright and check his eyes, his ears, his nose, his throat, all flashlights and cold hands. They ask him if he would like to request the Psych Analyst. He says no. He just wants to fucking lie back down, and it doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen here. Grimmjow wants to lie down, and he wants to talk to Kurosaki, _needs to_ — Whoever the fuck had made the dead brained decision to separate them after every drift so far had already made it onto his shit list, but they were rapidly climbing to the top of it now. And Grimmjow— he needs to explain. The RABIT. _They’d drifted._ He’d seen things. Things Grimmjow had never meant for anyone to see, least of all Kurosaki. Because it wasn’t _fair,_ not to him.

Kurosaki’s not here, they tell him. Escorted back to his quarters about an hour ago, and _fuck that_ , he thinks and must say out loud too. He has to— get up, find him, explain, make sure he’s alright.

A nurse is shouting at him in the next few seconds as he yanks the ECG wires from the leads taped to his chest and chucks them aside. He’s got his free hand around the IV stuck in the crook of his elbow by the time she makes it to him. She’s likely been trained in handling unruly patients, wartime and the various residents of a Shatterdome considering, but she makes no attempt to force Grimmjow back down to the bed. Which is good and bad. Good, because he really can’t put up a fight in this condition, the mint green wells of the Med Bay undulating a little around him. Bad, because he should probably _stay_ , but she’s already drawing the IV out of his arm properly and pressing cotton to the pinprick of blood that wells up.

Nobody escorts him, which again, good and bad. It means that Grimmjow is left to stumble his way into the elevator, leaning against the wall as it lurches up, but at least he’s alone. He’s in a white tee shirt and a pair of black military pants that are a little baggy on him, loose around his hips, and that’s definitely not what he had on last. The world has stopped swaying as the doors heave open, and the nausea has abated. The hallway feels like the longest, unending thing in human history as he walks down it. How fucking long was he out, he wonders, as he has to grip the rail leading up to their door. The metal groans as he pushes it open, and at least the room is noticeably warmer than the hallway as he steps in.

The second he gets the latch down on the door, Kurosaki has a forearm pressed to his chest, just under his throat, slamming him against the metal. Grimmjow hisses as something digs into his back, wincing at the throb where Kurosaki is pinning him with the strength of a steel beam. There’s a righteous sort of fury burning in his hazel eyes, and he’s so close that Grimmjow can almost count the faint freckles that span the bridge of his nose.

His hair is a disaster and the circles under his eyes are so dark they look like two shiners. A blood vessel must have popped in Kurosaki’s left eye at some point, because the entire outer corner of it is dark, looks almost black in the shitty lighting of their room.

“ _You’re an asshole,_ ” he snarls, and that’s not really breaking news to Grimmjow, but coming from Kurosaki it kinda is. And maybe it’s sort of his turn to apologize, say he thought he had everything under control, which wouldn’t be a lie in the slightest.

He’s still reeling from it, if he’s being honest with himself. Grimmjow has absolutely no confirmation, but he’s pretty fucking sure that all of _that_ had happened because Shiro had been moved _out of the way._ That Kurosaki had to bear the weight of Grimmjow’s own memories, the mother of all RABITs, because Shiro couldn’t protect him the same way from within the black box.

“You were never going to tell me, were you?” And, _huh,_ why does that sound vaguely familiar?

“Gonna have to spell it out for me, Kurosaki,” he grunts, totally confused, as more pressure is pushed down onto his rather sore chest.

He’s already so close, the extra force has to be out of spite. Because Kurosaki surges forward in the next instant and the back of Grimmjow’s head thunks a little painfully against the metal door, but Kurosaki is _kissing him._ Arm like a vise, nose smushed up against his, warm lips crushed to Grimmjow’s cold ones. And every thought in his overtaxed brain blinks out like a blown lightbulb. Just one, _one, singular,_ and he’s pulling away, drawing back far enough for him to stare at Grimmjow some more with narrowed eyes, his pupils swallowing everything like blackholes. Far enough for Grimmjow to glare at him, affronted, stunned, incomplete, and long enough for him to get shaky fingers threaded almost painfully into orange hair at the nape of his neck and drag him back in.

Kurosaki makes a little noise in the back of his throat, a surprised sort of huff, the same one he’d made earlier when Grimmjow was too thrilled by their momentary Drift success to keep all of himself _to_ himself and oh, _oh._

It’s not the same quiet realization as before, laden in poetry and soft whispering. It’s with the taste of iron in the back of his throat and his whole body burning like he’s flown far too close to the sun and the universe goes a little supernova this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on Twitter acting a fool on the regular [here](https://mobile.twitter.com/sayhitoforeverr)  
> Join the GrimmIchi Discord [here!](https://discord.gg/u4TGnAkv)


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